How do you think the Democrats would have done in power?

[LongSilence]

In all seriousness, how would have things turned out if the Florida voting debacle hadn't gone as it had and Gore had got the Presidency? Bear in mind America is still America and there are still all those US citizens with their views but for those four years at least the Democrats sat in the White House.

Put down your 'What If' Scenarios [and try to put the Bush hatred to one side since in this world he's just a failed candidate].

[Nighthawk]

In all seriousness, how would have things turned out if the Florida voting debacle hadn't gone as it had and Gore had got the Presidency? Bear in mind America is still America and there are still all those US citizens with their views but for those four years at least the Democrats sat in the White House.

Put down your 'What If' Scenarios [and try to put the Bush hatred to one side since in this world he's just a failed candidate].


I think things would have blended a bit and been more vanilla. Less of the extremes we see now. I am no fan of either the Dems or Reps ... I think both are corrupt and self-serving. However, I think the Reps have been in power long enough and it is time for a change.

[Oso Mocoso]

Put down your 'What If' Scenarios [and try to put the Bush hatred to one side since in this world he's just a failed candidate].

I think the USA would still have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, and I think there would still be the massive waste of money that is the War on Terror. I doubt the Dems would have invaded Iraq, so maybe the War on Terror would be slightly less expensive. It would still be mostly ineffectual though, and focused on creating security theater rather than effective security.

The other big development I see is globalization. The Dems might be more inclined to engage in isolationist trade barrier type laws, which are stupid and harmful to the economy. However, they're still just as corrupt and loyal to their financial backers, so they probably wouldn't go too far in that direction. So ... things would probably be mostly the same, but with less chaos on the ground in Iraq.

--Oso

[C.J.Woolf]

Let's see:


No invasion of Iraq
No neocons in positions of power and influence
A more intelligence- and police-based approach to fighting al-Qaida, probably with some special ops here and there.
No Justices Roberts and Alito; more moderate justices instead
The Justice, Defense, State, and other Departments not riddled with political hacks and cronies to a degree not seen in my lifetime



[Crossposted with Oso.]

[omnirook]

9/11 probably would not have happened. 9/11 happened as a reaction to the neocons getting back into official power. It does not matter that Bush's less than one year in office would not have been enough time to pull off the attack, that the planning and preparing for the attack had to begin while Clinton was still in office: all sorts of plans can be made and set up, but they are just that - plans that are set up, nothing more. Giving the go-ahead and carrying through was a reaction to Bush - to what he was a symbol for, American hegemony w/in the expansion of global market imperialism. Clinton's proven track record for being willing to compromise, for being willing to work w/others, was appreciated by even our worst enemies. Bush has made it clear that no such cooperation, that no such compromise, would be allowed. Hence, the attack, hence the increased determination of America's enemies.

The legacy of the Bush Administration will be profound: either America will learn its lesson and change its attitude or it will be brought down and torn to pieces. History is littered w/empires that ended by learning that power cannot be held for long if force is its only means. You CANNOT beat an enemy that has an endless supply of suicide bombers! So long as your enemy is willing to die to stop you, you cannot beat him. Vietnam should have taught this to America. America is thick headed and stubborn. Iraq might do the trick.

[LongSilence]

9/11 probably would not have happened. 9/11 happened as a reaction to the neocons getting back into official power.

Now, that's quite controversial.

[omnirook]

Now, that's quite controversial.

Good. So?

[PiccoloNamek]

You CANNOT beat an enemy that has an endless supply of suicide bombers! So long as your enemy is willing to die to stop you, you cannot beat him.

You could beat him in a day if you quit being a pansy and pulled out your biggest weapons. I'm talking total Tsar Bomba here. (Nicolai would probably know it as "Big Ivan"). Just one or two of those, and they'd get the hint, real quickly.


The clouds beneath the aircraft and in the distance were lit up by the powerful flash. The sea of light spread under the hatch and even clouds began to glow and became transparent. At that moment, our aircraft emerged from between two cloud layers and down below in the gap a huge bright orange ball was emerging. The ball was powerful and arrogant like Jupiter. Slowly and silently it crept upwards.... Having broken through the thick layer of clouds it kept growing. It seemed to suck the whole earth into it. The spectacle was fantastic, unreal, supernatural.

Not that I actually advocate the usage of such devices, but yeah, you'd win rather quickly with just a few of them.

[sorabji_66]

have observed the elections closely since 1972 and felt the only time the US picked the wrong candidate was 1976, but that was quite understandable at the time.

[apple]

9/11 probably would not have happened. 9/11 happened as a reaction to the neocons getting back into official power. It does not matter that Bush's less than one year in office would not have been enough time to pull off the attack, that the planning and preparing for the attack had to begin while Clinton was still in office: all sorts of plans can be made and set up, but they are just that - plans that are set up, nothing more. Giving the go-ahead and carrying through was a reaction to Bush - to what he was a symbol for, American hegemony w/in the expansion of global market imperialism. Clinton's proven track record for being willing to compromise, for being willing to work w/others, was appreciated by even our worst enemies. Bush has made it clear that no such cooperation, that no such compromise, would be allowed. Hence, the attack, hence the increased determination of America's enemies.

The legacy of the Bush Administration will be profound: either America will learn its lesson and change its attitude or it will be brought down and torn to pieces. History is littered w/empires that ended by learning that power cannot be held for long if force is its only means. You CANNOT beat an enemy that has an endless supply of suicide bombers! So long as your enemy is willing to die to stop you, you cannot beat him. Vietnam should have taught this to America. America is thick headed and stubborn. Iraq might do the trick.

Fascinating analysis. So do you think 9/11 was a global effort to end the American neocon regime?

[Ferrus]

It would still be mostly ineffectual though, and focused on creating security theater rather than effective security.
Have the Republicans really done any better though? All governments seem to spend more money on showy new technology that looks impressive but has limited effect. Why? Because it reassures the voters. And, ultimately, the Iraq War was not a part of the 'war on terror' (and the Bush administration has said so, though not very loudly) - anyone who thinks that pre-war Iraq had any connection with terrorists is an idiot who should be roundly ignored - but it has nevertheless proved a boon to Al-qaeda. Saddam would not have toleated them on his soil, now they are free to train and breed, and indeed get real combat experience. This applies even without the great propoganda coup of having US troops in Islamic soil (for who now can deny that the US does actively intervene) and a whole mass of Shias to kill.

Strange to say, but the US is probably in a reasonably good position against domestic terrorism - there are not many Muslims, those that are there are reasonably loyal and the few that are not and might form incipient Al-Qaeda cells are easily interdicted by the FBI as in Buffalo. It is Muslim immigrants in Europe who probably comprise the greatest threat - and perhaps this goes some way towards explaining why many European countries were so reluctant to be involved in the war. Those that did eventually join either did so in very small numbers which have since been reduced (Italy) or pulled out altogether after the terrorist threat for being involved became evident (Spain). And neither of those countries have the same number of Muslims that the UK (primarily Pakistanis and Bangladeshis), the Netherlands (a mixture, mainly Arabs), France (Algerians) and Germany (Turks) have.

[The Concertinist]

9/11 happened as a reaction to the neocons getting back into official power...all sorts of plans can be made and set up, but they are just that - plans that are set up, nothing more. Giving the go-ahead and carrying through was a reaction to Bush

Then how do you explain the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?

[omnirook]

Then how do you explain the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?

Clinton had just taken office and had not yet established his own policies as separate from those of his predecessor - who just happened to be Dubya's daddy and a "kinder, gentler" neocon. It is important to understand that Bill Clinton was the most popular American president in history outside of this country. People have such short memories! Think back to the Clinton presidency. What other American president was ever thronged by mobs of well-wishers wherever he went? He was particularly popular in the UK and Ireleand - and in the Middle East. Clinton was seen as a US president who understood that America could not stand alone and that America had to respect the UN and the integrity of foreign countries. Yes - he went into the Balkans - but at the request of the UN and only after he had called everyone to make sure that they supported his going in.

Hardly anyone remembers the outpouring of support that followed 9/11. Again - people have such short memories! The Bush presidency had been virtually ignored. For the first 9 months that George W Bush was in office, Bill Clinton got far more media coverage than Bush. Then 9/11 happened, and necessarily the media began to focus on Bush, and what did he do? He put on his 1000 gallon hat and played John Wayne on speed, crack, LSD, and heroin put together. IRAN offered official condolences and offered to send troops to help the US find bin Laden and bring him to JUSTICE! Our troops and IRANIAN troops would have been fighting side by side! Cuba offered official condolences and offered to send help for the victims! Bush slapped down both countries and refused to acknowledge their good will. He was the new sherriff in town, and that was that.

In the 6, nearly 7 years that Dubya has been president (no matter that he stole the elections of 2000 and 2004), he has destroyed the good will of the whole of the world. Even the British, our first and our most loyal ally of 200 years standing, have begun to despise us. We ignored the input of our other principle allies, the French and the Germans, forgetting that the Germans were key to European good will and that the French had ties to the Middle East that could have opened more doors than any amount of bombs. We have insulted the Russians! Russia may be down but it is not out, and a country w/the military hardware that Russia possesses and the vast, untapped resources that it possesses CANNOT be insulted. To provide his constituency w/the tax breaks and other economic love that they wanted, Bush has funded his mess in the Middle East by borrowing money from both China and India. We have blindly funded the expansion of the 2 countries that were in a position to become our principle rivals. STUPIDITY all the way around, the stupidity that could only be accomplished by the pack of emotionally crippled mental defectives who call themselves "neocons."

[Lateralus]

Clinton had just taken office and had not yet established his own policies as separate from those of his predecessor - who just happened to be Dubya's daddy and a "kinder, gentler" neocon. It is important to understand that Bill Clinton was the most popular American president in history outside of this country. People have such short memories! Think back to the Clinton presidency. What other American president was ever thronged by mobs of well-wishers wherever he went? He was particularly popular in the UK and Ireleand - and in the Middle East. Clinton was seen as a US president who understood that America could not stand alone and that America had to respect the UN and the integrity of foreign countries. Yes - he went into the Balkans - but at the request of the UN and only after he had called everyone to make sure that they supported his going in.
For a long time, the idea of Hillary Clinton being president has caused me to be uneasy. To be honest, I don't really understand why. I wonder if she would be anything like her husband. If she does win, I hope so.

[omnirook]

You could beat him in a day if you quit being a pansy and pulled out your biggest weapons. I'm talking total Tsar Bomba here. (Nicolai would probably know it as "Big Ivan"). Just one or two of those, and they'd get the hint, real quickly.
Bullshit. Nobody, not even Bush, is going to drop a nuclear bomb. The Russians and the Chinese and even the British would take action. Given that we are bogged down in Iraq and cannot raise more troops w/o a politically impossible draft, the US could not fight a war against those 3 put together, especially since France would join them. Our navy could not stand up to the Royal Navy; the French have a fine airforce, and the Russians have proven their ability to mobilize under pressure, not to mention that any nuclear strike on Russia would spell the end of the United States, instantly, automatically, w/o the slightest hope of preventing it or even mitigating it. And the Chinese kicked the shit out of us in 2 wars, one in Korea, one in Vietnam. That's that for the nuke idea. As for heavy, carpet bombing w/conventional explosives - think Vietnam and realize that we pounded Vietnam harder than we pounded Nazi Germany. Vietnam still won that war (w/a lot of help from its friend, China, whom we did not dare attack openly - China has nukes!).

[The Concertinist]

Bullshit. Nobody, not even Bush, is going to drop a nuclear bomb.

That's not what they said. Read it again. Their point was not that we will, or should, drop a nuke, but that if we did, it would have a certain effect.

[The Concertinist]

Clinton had just taken office and had not yet established his own policies as separate from those of his predecessor - who just happened to be Dubya's daddy and a "kinder, gentler" neocon.

But you said, "all sorts of plans can be made and set up, but they are just that - plans that are set up, nothing more. Giving the go-ahead and carrying through was a reaction to Bush."

If 1993 was a reaction to the previous president, then why is 2001 not also a reaction to the previous president?

If the terrorists were waiting for the proper motivation to bomb (Bush being their motivation in 2001), then why not bomb in 1992, or earlier, when their motivation (Bush Sr.) was still in power?

You said that before 9/11, Bush was ignored by the media in favor of Clinton. I agree; not only was he ignored, he didn't really DO anything. However, that being the case, how did the terrorists determine that Bush was enough of a threat to warrant the pulling of another trigger?

[omnirook]

Fascinating analysis. So do you think 9/11 was a global effort to end the American neocon regime?

Well, global is a bit strong. 9/11 was an attack that was meant to get the US's attention, to let the neocons know that Islam would not go down w/o a fight. Islam is despised by the neocons, not especially on religious grounds, though it is convenient to play up religious differences in garnering support at home, but for economic reasons. Think of the one thing that is dearest beyond all things to a neocon heart and realize that Islam forbids that thing, then know why the neocons have such a hardon against Islam: interest. Usuary is forbidden in the Koran. Devout Muslims in the Middle East do not lend money at interest, do not use credit cards but stick to debit cards. Yes, exceptions can be found, but they are rare and go against the feelings of the Muslim population. Lending money at interest and borrowing money at interest are hated by devout Muslims. This makes them the worst kind of threat to the neocons, whose principle goal is to drive up the debt of their victims. Debt servitude is slavery in the modern world, and the neocons are the modern world's most ardent slave drivers.

[booyalab]

Now, that's quite controversial.
yeah, if by 'controversial' you mean 'retarded beyond belief'.

[Lateralus]

Well, global is a bit strong. 9/11 was an attack that was meant to get the US's attention, to let the neocons know that Islam would not go down w/o a fight. Islam is despised by the neocons, not especially on religious grounds, though it is convenient to play up religious differences in garnering support at home, but for economic reasons. Think of the one thing that is dearest beyond all things to a neocon heart and realize that Islam forbids that thing, then know why the neocons have such a hardon against Islam: interest. Usuary is forbidden in the Koran. Devout Muslims in the Middle East do not lend money at interest, do not use credit cards but stick to debit cards. Yes, exceptions can be found, but they are rare and go against the feelings of the Muslim population. Lending money at interest and borrowing money at interest are hated by devout Muslims. This makes them the worst kind of threat to the neocons, whose principle goal is to drive up the debt of their victims. Debt servitude is slavery in the modern world, and the neocons are the modern world's most ardent slave drivers.
This is something I've considered for a while, the interest perspective. I'm not entirely sold on it, but it has gotten me thinking. Is it possible to have a viable economy without any sort of interest?

[omnirook]

But you said, "all sorts of plans can be made and set up, but they are just that - plans that are set up, nothing more. Giving the go-ahead and carrying through was a reaction to Bush."

If 1993 was a reaction to the previous president, then why is 2001 not also a reaction to the previous president?

If the terrorists were waiting for the proper motivation to bomb (Bush being their motivation in 2001), then why not bomb in 1992, or earlier, when their motivation (Bush Sr.) was still in power?

You said that before 9/11, Bush was ignored by the media in favor of Clinton. I agree; not only was he ignored, he didn't really DO anything. However, that being the case, how did the terrorists determine that Bush was enough of a threat to warrant the pulling of another trigger?

I can't prove that 9/11 wasn't a reaction to Clinton - but I do not believe that it was. Clinton was too popular internationally. Even the Arabs liked him because he had pressured Israel into opening up w/the Palestinians. To me, the more likely scenario is the one that I laid out. The 1993 attack resulted from the Bush I presidency, serving as a warning to the Clinton Administration to take better care about stepping on toes. (It is interesting to note that the 1993 attack was not successful in causing any significant damage - surely those who carried it out would have known this before they went ahead and did it.) The 2001 attack was not the result of the Clinton Administration but was a warning to the Bush Administration - and note that the attack was successful in destroying the towers and killing a lot of people. Bush I had scared the hell out of a lot of people w/his talk of a "new world order," and Bush II needed a lesson. Unfortunately, the lesson that was given was beyond the mental capacity of its student. His reaction was not the reaction of a sane, intelligent man, who would have said to himself, "Gee, now is not the time to go wild. Everybody from all over the world has phoned me to give me their condolences and an offer to help us clean up and go after the attackers. Wow! I can have the world, Iran included, working along w/me!" Nope. Not Dubya. Dubya was tickled pink by 9/11, probably shot a load in his shorts over it. Now he had the excuse that he needed to go ahead in IRAQ.

[Ferrus]

Islam is despised by the neocons, not especially on religious grounds, though it is convenient to play up religious differences in garnering support at home, but for economic reasons.
Well, I would say that whilst Islam is socially very much to the right, economically it is quite left - Western style capitalism, and commercialism has always grated with traditionalist Islamic teaching.

[omnirook]

Well, I would say that whilst Islam is socially very much to the right, economically it is quite left - Western style capitalism, and commercialism has always grated with traditionalist Islamic teaching.

And therein lies the rub. The neocons do NOT give a fuck about religion, except as a tool to use in keeping the masses whom they despise quiescent. Fucking Wolfowicz in the papers that he wrote - and published! - noted how fucking stupid, worthless, and useless the public was and how easy it was to manipulate the public, so easy that taking the public into account was a waste of time. And he must be right because he's still breathing, wasn't strung up from the nearest post for having said it. The neocons are ARROGANT and have not held back in stating that they believe in their own right to do as they wish because they are superior to the mob over whom they rule. It's there for anyone to read! Any group of people who are not on board w/their visions of a world wherein the elite have unfettered right to do as they please to whomever they please, whenever and however they please is an enemy. Muslims who are against the worst aspects of the capitalist system are enemies that must be destroyed. They have resisted Starbucks and Disney and McDonalds and globalization in general. In the end, it has nothing to do w/religion. Nothing.

[Ferrus]

It is fascinating nonetheless how much Bush plays the religion card. It is almost as if Bush is there as a token Christian fundo to keep the Evangelists on-side with their various crusades so that they can provide votes that enable Cheney and others to do the genuine dirty work.

[sorabji_66]

Then how do you explain the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?


they can't.

why do people, esp. INTPs waste so much of their time on this nonsense?

the world is pretty straightforward and simple.

[omnirook]

It is fascinating nonetheless how much Bush plays the religion card. It is almost as if Bush is there as a token Christian fundo to keep the Evangelists on-side with their various crusades so that they can provide votes that enable Cheney and others to do the genuine dirty work.

Exactly. Bush II is a figurehead - just as Reagan was. Difference is, Bush II is unaware that he is a figurehead, so his keepers have to play along w/his delusions ... I have been taken to task for my assertions regarding the wide gap in the IQ between Dubya and Bubba. Me being me, I don't care - it's what I see, and I stand by it. Bubba was smarter than the people around him and was able to save his presidency from the most powerful and concentrated attack against a presidency in the nation's history - save his presidency from the attack and still manage to be an effective president. No dummy could do that. Dubya, on the other hand, has had no attack to deal with; his whole term in office has been coddled and pampered and allowed outrageous latitude - and he's still managed to bollocks up the works! Every president w/2 brain cells to rub together has realized that America's military power was the last resort, was to be used only in desperation. Human beings do not like to wear chains! Voltaire pointed out that humanity could be made do anything, good or bad, if its leaders at least appeared to be constrained in the same way as their followers. Every wise leader from Voltaire's day forward has heeded this advice. Even North Korea's leader gives lip service to the idea that he is joined in the struggle w/his people. Bush's attempts to rule by fiat have been disastrous! "I'm the decider" was his public statement that he was the boss. Americans do NOT like bosses, at least not bosses who lack humility and who fail to give out largess to the public. Harry showed me that an effective boss is not the clown who sits behind the big desk in the corner office, his inner sanctum guarded by a dragon in secretary's clothing. NO. An effective boss is the boss who acts like Caesar, who knew his troops by name, remembered their stories, who spoke to them in their own language. Caesar's troops would have followed him into Hell itself. Why? Because they could not forget that he did not forget. Oh, your wife had a baby and cannot keep the farm like she used to. Well, don't worry - I'll see to it that your fields are ploughed ... I just heard that your father has died. I am sorry for you. And the man's whole legion would go into mourning w/him, and Caesar himself would not only attend but preside over the memorial service and make a sacrifice for the repose of the soul of the trooper's father. It costed Caesar so little to treat his men like men - but they appreciated it to the point that they would die for him if he asked them to die. That is the kind of despot who could wipe away these snivelling neocon cowards who don't mind shedding the blood of the people they see as inferior to themselves.

[Oso Mocoso]

yeah, if by 'controversial' you mean 'retarded beyond belief'.

Booyalab, you have a gift for understatement. Omnirook is indeed being retarded beyond belief, but you fail to convey the enormous degree which his retardation is retarded beyond belief.

--Oso

[Ferrus]

I believe it was Machiavelli who said that the very greatest leaders are both loved and feared at the same time.

[Oso Mocoso]

Have the Republicans really done any better though? All governments seem to spend more money on showy new technology that looks impressive but has limited effect. Why? Because it reassures the voters. And, ultimately, the Iraq War was not a part of the 'war on terror'

Umm ... yes it is. The rest of your post really had nothing to do with responding to what I said, so I'll just address this part of it.

The Republicans haven't done any better, which is why I said the War on Terror would "still" be ridiculously expensive and ineffectual.

The entire WoT is just serving for propaganda purposes. It's not like anyone is fighting something real. Terror does not have a geographical or political boundary, which is why it's such a cool thing to be at war with if you're a Republican official. It's not War on Islam after all, like you seemed to be getting at by mentioning European Muslims. It's War on Terror which means whatever the fuck some politician who's up for reelection wants it to mean to nail his rhetorical point.

--Oso

[Ferrus]

It's not War on Islam after all, like you seemed to be getting at by mentioning European Muslims.
No, my post is getting at the fact that it is undeniable that the Iraq war
seperate from the war on Terror has done the most to excersise tension amongst European Muslims.

[omnirook]

I believe it was Machiavelli who said that the very greatest leaders are both loved and feared at the same time.

And one of his models was Caesar! Caesar also punished his troops when they let him down. His action against the 5th legion for having rioted was severe. They were forced to execute the leaders of the riot and were forced to decimate their own ranks and were forced to march in the rear and to carry the loads of the other legions, and they were forced to do w/o their precious legionary eagles. It was also made clear that they would not share in any of the booty after the war. They would not get land; they would not get slaves; they would not get gold. In the desperate battle against Vercingetorix, where Caesar's legions were pitted against against an enemy that outnumbered them 10 to 1, the 5th wept and begged to be allowed to redeem themselves by being the first to attack. They would bear the worst of it, many if not most of them would surely die - but they wanted to be forgiven that badly. Caesar refused their request and sent them to the back of the lines to wait w/the women and the baggage carts. There would be no mercy - and never again did any of Caesar's troops riot because he lacked cash to pay them up front or because they had to eat grass and berries because the military grain bins were empty. Pompey Magnus wept when he was shown what Caesar's troops were eating w/o complaint: cakes made out of grass, held together by bits of mud. Pompey knew then that he could not beat Caesar. And he didn't. Note: Pompey's troops had plenty of food because he had his own food - and Caesar's. He had successfully raided Caesar's supply train and had cut off Caesar's supply line from Italy. Pompey figured that a few weeks of being hungry would be enough, so that Caesar would sue for peace. He was wrong and knew that he was wrong when he was shown what Caesar's troops were eating w/o complaint.

[Ferrus]

Hmm... I think I may actually read my copies of The Conquest of Gaul and The Civil Wars now.

[The Concertinist]

Well, global is a bit strong. 9/11 was an attack that was meant to get the US's attention, to let the neocons know that Islam would not go down w/o a fight.

Are you saying that this is an issue of Islam vs Neo-conservativsm? I agree that they might hate Neocons, but I think you're very short-sighted to think that's the entire problem. Remember that a lot of what they're struggling against is what they see as Western immorality and decedence. You can thank 60s liberals for helping to mainstream many of the things muslims hate about us, like drugs, promiscuity (both hetero and homo), and the music that condones it.

Ask any muslim why they hate us, and I would bet the majority of the time they would say it's our morals rather than our economic policies.

[Ferrus]

Ask any muslim why they hate us, and I would bet the majority of the time they would say it's our morals rather than our economic policies.
Most Muslims would see the two as intimately connected.

[The Concertinist]

Most Muslims would see the two as intimately connected.

Okay, fair enough, but to say the Neocons are solely to blame for muslim hatred is ridiculous.

[Ferrus]

Okay, fair enough, but to say the Neocons are solely to blame for muslim hatred is ridiculous.
Solely is too strong, but primarily is not - the hatred of the USA has been ratched to a new notch by the actions of the Bush administration, because of its ill-conceived foreign policy.

[omnirook]

Are you saying that this is an issue of Islam vs Neo-conservativsm? I agree that they might hate Neocons, but I think you're very short-sighted to think that's the entire problem. Remember that a lot of what they're struggling against is what they see as Western immorality and decedence. You can thank 60s liberals for helping to mainstream many of the things muslims hate about us, like drugs, promiscuity (both hetero and homo), and the music that condones it.

Ask any muslim why they hate us, and I would bet the majority of the time they would say it's our morals rather than our economic policies.

You and I are not that far apart in what we think, at least not in substance. Look, devout Muslims have long despised the West, whether it was led by the British or the Americans (in reality, the West is led by an Anglo-American partnership, but let's leave things as simple as possible for the moment).

Actually, the problem between the West and the Muslims is just the modern edition of an ancient problem, which goes back to the trouble between the Greeks and the Persians - and even before them, though their wars were the first largescale confrontations.

For at least 3000 years, there has been a huge problem between the East and the West. Over the millennia, the problem has been draped in this or that cultural costume, very often made up of superficial religious differences. No matter - the underlying problem, the root cause, has remained the same. What is the underlying problem, the root cause? Mindset. There is a fundamental, essential, irreconcilable difference between the way that westerners and easterners view the world and mankind's place w/in that world. And one needs to study Chrisitianity to get at the nexus of that difference. Christianity was the compromise between the two; Christianity was the form of Eastern thought that was acceptable to the Western mind: Christianity at least adopted the most important aspects of Western belief, even if it overlaid them w/Eastern flavor. The world may be an irredeemably wicked place, but the West's precious individual can still triumph and be saved, even if he does pile up loot and live like a tsar.

To understand the East, one must understand that the individual, the one person, is NOTHING. Understand that, and you will understand that there is no way to reconcile the 2 sides, though the West has relied upon a sell-out Muslim leadership that has been supported in luxury to keep the mass of devout Mulsims down, a leadership that has been educated at Oxford and Harvard and the Wharton Business School. And it has worked - up until now - really, up until the 1979 overthrow of the shah in Iran. Devout Muslims don't give a damn about money and houses and cars and finery and fancy food and other creature comforts! You CAN'T buy them off. And they DESPISE their own rulers who have sold them out - the Saudi Royal Family is DESPISED all across the Muslim world. Hussein was a hero to the Muslims because he stood up to the West. Yes - he built palaces and lived like a king - BUT his people, the Iraqi people, undeniably enjoyed the highest standard of living in the Arab world - in terms that Arabs could appreciate: kin and blood ties were respected, education and healthcare came first, there were no decadent Western style luxuries to be found in the shops. The morals laws of the Koran were enforced. And Hussein symbolized what the East has always ADORED: the absolute tyrrant who will crush and kill the least opposition - none of this wicked democratic bullshit, none of this crap corporate "rule of law" horseshit. Hussein thought nothing of doing what Tito did - suppressing his opposition w/o hesitation. Fuck you! That was his attitude - and that is what the East respects, has always respected, will always respect. Because the individual is NOTHING, is NOBODY, does NOT count, can be destroyed w/impunity if he defies convention, if he fails to keep Allah's laws. ALL that matters is the wider Muslim brotherhood. The community. The group. Live in a desert for a week, and I assure you that you will understand how such an attitude, how such a belief took root.

[Nighthawk]

...the hatred of the USA has been ratched to a new notch by the actions of the Bush administration, because of its ill-conceived foreign policy.

I concur. It will be interesting to see how the next administration tries to fix the damage. I sincerely hope that the Dems can provide a reasonable candidate to run. Of course, if Cheney runs for the Reps, that won't be to difficult.

[Lateralus]

Ask any muslim why they hate us, and I would bet the majority of the time they would say it's our morals rather than our economic policies.
Knowing more than a few Muslims, personally, not one of them says it's our morals. It's our politics.

Every time someone makes a statement like this, I just shake my head in disbelief.

[Ferrus]

And Hussein symbolized what the East has always ADORED
Having said that many of the arch-religious fundamentalists of the Middle East always despised him because he was seen as the typical secular dictator ruling without too much reference to Islam, which is why I always find it ridiculous that anyone could connect Al-Qaeda to Saddam. Even in purely power political terms the Bush administration has fucked it up - Iran has become a new regional power? Why? Because Iran's greatest enemies - Saddam, let us not forget that the Iran-Iraq war brutal, with the largest number of casulaties since WW2 and chemical weapons being used and the Taliban (who were Sunnis) have been wiped of the map with US help. And Israel has done everything possible to make the Lebanese government look like a parody of administration, hence handing power directly to Hezbollah. Now Iran has lost those unsavoury dictators that hemmed it in - and has a free hand to intervene in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and even into Central Asia. The Bush administration created the Iranian crisis. Indeed, Reagan supported Saddam - although he supported Iran to, infamously through the Iran-Contra scandal, their reasoning was to weaken both sides through internecine war so neither posed a threat - for exactly those reasons.

Moreover, and this I feel is important, so many casually dismiss Saddam as a brutal dictator and forget why he resorted to the actions he did. Iraq is a pathetic idea for a country, basically drawn up between France and Britian to divide the spoils of the defunct Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1. With so many inimical groups it needs a strong man, as do so many African countries for the same reason. In the West we tend to smugly dismiss these forms of government as being the result of their 'underdevlopedness' or whatever, yet it is Western intervention that led to these methods of rule being needful!

And as for Saddam. Few remember that the USA, and their venal, oil-bloated protectorates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE actually prodded Saddam into war with Iran. Every decision thereafter was a consquence of that one, fateful choice. When Saddam went to war with Iran, 'the die was cast' as Caesar said crossing the Rubicon. The war with Iran meant rebellion at a time of invasion, and thus the horrors that occurred to the Kurds and Marsh Arabs. The war with Iran left what was the greatest army in the Middle East broken by waves of fanatical Persians fighting the old Arab enemy, and what was a country renowed for wealth in the 70's was destitute. Saddam faced a coup and his own death. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had promised money to Iraq which they now refused to pay since the war had ended. For both these countries feared Islamic revolution Iranian style, as indeed they do now. Saddam was no longer useful. All Sadam could do is invade Kuwait. Dictators in a crisis always like sabre rattling, Mussolini in Abyssinia comes to mind. And so, after being duped by the US ambassadors equivocations, he invaded Kuwait as the 19th province. The US and the West (so enraged that its country size pumpjack, Kuwait, had been violated) led army encircled the Iraqi army, and pounded the shit out of it, but George Bush Senior did not want to see Saddam gone - he knew there would be a massive power vacuum. If only his son had that foresight! So Allies opened the way for the Iraqi army to suppress the Shias in the south - and now the US wonders why the Shias don't trust them! Saddam faced sanctions, and thus had to go even further with repression. By the time 9/11 happened, and he was on the Axis of Evil, there was absolutely nothing he could do. If one is hooped in power for so many years, one's vision becomes distorted by self-aggrandisation. It happens to all leaders - Saddam was notoriously bad, seeing himself as some sort of new Babylonian king. Thus when he should have ran, he did not, his vainglory winning out. An ongoing tradegy.

The surprising thing with Veitnam was its lack of long term consquences for US foreign policy - the surprising thing with Iraq may well be the domino chain it creates in Middle East.

[immortalmack]

Are you saying that this is an issue of Islam vs Neo-conservativsm? I agree that they might hate Neocons, but I think you're very short-sighted to think that's the entire problem. Remember that a lot of what they're struggling against is what they see as Western immorality and decedence. You can thank 60s liberals for helping to mainstream many of the things muslims hate about us, like drugs, promiscuity (both hetero and homo), and the music that condones it.

Ask any muslim why they hate us, and I would bet the majority of the time they would say it's our morals rather than our economic policies.

The neo cons/ republicans/ machevelli have used Islam as a false threat to take effective control of the american republic. Rome used this tactic all the time. The patrician consuls would get an unknown foreign power to start saber rattling long enough to be percieved as a threat, march out the poorer class who were the military and get bogged down in wars away from families and property and politics in the name of war, when in reality they effectually blocked the votes that would transfer some wealth and power to the plebians (agrarian law,intermarriage of classes and the right of plebian consuls). When the plebs got back from war they were too overwelmed in debt, being hauled off to jail and trying to maintain their homesteads instead of showing up at the forum and participating in the politics. One thing I will never forget from the PRINCE is this statement. "When a people are poor and dispursed they can cause you no trouble".

[immortalmack]

Having said that many of the arch-religious fundamentalists of the Middle East always despised him because he was seen as the typical secular dictator ruling without too much reference to Islam, which is why I always find it ridiculous that anyone could connect Al-Qaeda to Saddam. Even in purely power political terms the Bush administration has fucked it up - Iran has become a new regional power? Why? Because Iran's greatest enemies - Saddam, let us not forget that the Iran-Iraq war brutal, with the largest number of casulaties since WW2 and chemical weapons being used and the Taliban (who were Sunnis) have been wiped of the map with US help. And Israel has done everything possible to make the Lebanese government look like a parody of administration, hence handing power directly to Hezbollah. Now Iran has lost those unsavoury dictators that hemmed it in - and has a free hand to intervene in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and even into Central Asia. The Bush administration created the Iranian crisis. Indeed, Reagan supported Saddam - although he supported Iran to, infamously through the Iran-Contra scandal, their reasoning was to weaken both sides through internecine war so neither posed a threat - for exactly those reasons.

Moreover, and this I feel is important, so many casually dismiss Saddam as a brutal dictator and forget why he resorted to the actions he did. Iraq is a pathetic idea for a country, basically drawn up between France and Britian to divide the spoils of the defunct Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1. With so many inimical groups it needs a strong man, as do so many African countries for the same reason. In the West we tend to smugly dismiss these forms of government as being the result of their 'underdevlopedness' or whatever, yet it is Western intervention that led to these methods of rule being needful!

And as for Saddam. Few remember that the USA, and their venal, oil-bloated protectorates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE actually prodded Saddam into war with Iran. Every decision thereafter was a consquence of that one, fateful choice. When Saddam went to war with Iran, 'the die was cast' as Caesar said crossing the Rubicon. The war with Iran meant rebellion at a time of invasion, and thus the horrors that occurred to the Kurds and Marsh Arabs. The war with Iran left what was the greatest army in the Middle East broken by waves of fanatical Persians fighting the old Arab enemy, and what was a country renowed for wealth in the 70's was destitute. Saddam faced a coup and his own death. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had promised money to Iraq which they now refused to pay since the war had ended. For both these countries feared Islamic revolution Iranian style, as indeed they do now. Saddam was no longer useful. All Sadam could do is invade Kuwait. Dictators in a crisis always like sabre rattling, Mussolini in Abyssinia comes to mind. And so, after being duped by the US ambassadors equivocations, he invaded Kuwait as the 19th province. The US and the West (so enraged that its country size pumpjack, Kuwait, had been violated) led army encircled the Iraqi army, and pounded the shit out of it, but George Bush Senior did not want to see Saddam gone - he knew there would be a massive power vacuum. If only his son had that foresight! So Allies opened the way for the Iraqi army to suppress the Shias in the south - and now the US wonders why the Shias don't trust them! Saddam faced sanctions, and thus had to go even further with repression. By the time 9/11 happened, and he was on the Axis of Evil, there was absolutely nothing he could do. If one is hooped in power for so many years, one's vision becomes distorted by self-aggrandisation. It happens to all leaders - Saddam was notoriously bad, seeing himself as some sort of new Babylonian king. Thus when he should have ran, he did not, his vainglory winning out. An ongoing tradegy.

The surprising thing with Veitnam was its lack of long term consquences for US foreign policy - the surprising thing with Iraq may well be the domino chain it creates in Middle East.

You are 100% correct!

[Ferrus]

The neo cons/ republicans/ machevelli
I don't think of Neo Conservatism as Machiavellian. US (and indeed Soviet too) foreign policy in the Cold War was Machiavellian. Saddam was Machiavellian, so was Stalin, so were Nixon and Kissinger, so were Joseph Chamberlain and Cecil Rhodes (a late 19th century British imperialist, the former the founder of my university who has a massive tower in the campus named after him). All of them were moderately successful in getting their way.

No - the Neo cons are idealists. They share an optimisim that Western capitalist liberal represenative democracy is applicable everywhere and is the greatest, most highly developed form of government, and that the world would be peaceful and blissful if it were adopted everywhere. This is large scale utopian thinking that ignores the Machiavellian realities of domestic and foreign policy in a manner comparable to Gladstonian imperialism, Troskey's 'world revolution' and Hitler's Lebensraum. Reality tends to rather flounder it, as shown in Iraq. They are naive, ultimately. Omnirook says that they have this condescending view of the average people as dolts ready to be lead and marched in order by their dreams of 'perfect' capitalist order, where the magnates can live in luxury. What they fail to realise is that not everywhere has been influenced by globalisation and not everywhere is so ready to ascribe to their mode of living, their attitudes and be servile as they presume.

[omnirook]

Having said that many of the arch-religious fundamentalists of the Middle East always despised him because he was seen as the typical secular dictator ruling without too much reference to Islam, which is why I always find it ridiculous that anyone could connect Al-Qaeda to Saddam. Even in purely power political terms the Bush administration has fucked it up - Iran has become a new regional power? Why? Because Iran's greatest enemies - Saddam, let us not forget that the Iran-Iraq war brutal, with the largest number of casulaties since WW2 and chemical weapons being used and the Taliban (who were Sunnis) have been wiped of the map with US help. And Israel has done everything possible to make the Lebanese government look like a parody of administration, hence handing power directly to Hezbollah. Now Iran has lost those unsavoury dictators that hemmed it in - and has a free hand to intervene in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and even into Central Asia. The Bush administration created the Iranian crisis. Indeed, Reagan supported Saddam - although he supported Iran to, infamously through the Iran-Contra scandal, their reasoning was to weaken both sides through internecine war so neither posed a threat - for exactly those reasons.

Moreover, and this I feel is important, so many casually dismiss Saddam as a brutal dictator and forget why he resorted to the actions he did. Iraq is a pathetic idea for a country, basically drawn up between France and Britian to divide the spoils of the defunct Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1. With so many inimical groups it needs a strong man, as do so many African countries for the same reason. In the West we tend to smugly dismiss these forms of government as being the result of their 'underdevlopedness' or whatever, yet it is Western intervention that led to these methods of rule being needful!

And as for Saddam. Few remember that the USA, and their venal, oil-bloated protectorates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE actually prodded Saddam into war with Iran. Every decision thereafter was a consquence of that one, fateful choice. When Saddam went to war with Iran, 'the die was cast' as Caesar said crossing the Rubicon. The war with Iran meant rebellion at a time of invasion, and thus the horrors that occurred to the Kurds and Marsh Arabs. The war with Iran left what was the greatest army in the Middle East broken by waves of fanatical Persians fighting the old Arab enemy, and what was a country renowed for wealth in the 70's was destitute. Saddam faced a coup and his own death. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had promised money to Iraq which they now refused to pay since the war had ended. For both these countries feared Islamic revolution Iranian style, as indeed they do now. Saddam was no longer useful. All Sadam could do is invade Kuwait. Dictators in a crisis always like sabre rattling, Mussolini in Abyssinia comes to mind. And so, after being duped by the US ambassadors equivocations, he invaded Kuwait as the 19th province. The US and the West (so enraged that its country size pumpjack, Kuwait, had been violated) led army encircled the Iraqi army, and pounded the shit out of it, but George Bush Senior did not want to see Saddam gone - he knew there would be a massive power vacuum. If only his son had that foresight! So Allies opened the way for the Iraqi army to suppress the Shias in the south - and now the US wonders why the Shias don't trust them! Saddam faced sanctions, and thus had to go even further with repression. By the time 9/11 happened, and he was on the Axis of Evil, there was absolutely nothing he could do. If one is hooped in power for so many years, one's vision becomes distorted by self-aggrandisation. It happens to all leaders - Saddam was notoriously bad, seeing himself as some sort of new Babylonian king. Thus when he should have ran, he did not, his vainglory winning out. An ongoing tradegy.

The surprising thing with Veitnam was its lack of long term consquences for US foreign policy - the surprising thing with Iraq may well be the domino chain it creates in Middle East.

Yes - but Hussein was tolerated, and his destruction was resented. You are right in what you say - especially about Bush Sr having pissed off many a neocon and hardline trailer-trash dimwit w/refusing to remove Hussein from power. Hussein was the best choice - and Dumbya failed to understand that, though we have been told that Papa Bush all but begged on his knees for his stupid son to forget about his pet project of going to war w/Iraq. There was that barely recalled period when Bush Sr was persona non grata at the White House, when the media whispered that the 2 were fighting.

Right. Exactly. The neocons are idealists - of the nastiest sort. They believe that their dream, the in-name-only "democracy," which really is an oligarchic republic w/themselves at its healm, is the best form of government in all places, at all times, under all circumstances. In that, they can be viewed as secular "Christians:" the blind, stupid fanaticism remains in tact, minus any real belief in God. Christians believe that their brand of insanity is suitable for all the world's asylums; neocons are even crazier because they are immune to the poison of religious zealotry - yet still fail to understand what must be understood: people will NOT tolerate disrespect for their culture.

[Ferrus]

Yes - but Hussein was tolerated, and his destruction was resented.
I don't think his destruction was resented. I think they were silently happy - not your average Muslim but the devout ones. The behaviour of his sons were not becoming in an Islamic society and it was clear Saddam was a half-believer - he exiled Shia clerics as enemies, and he only adopted Islamic motifs after it became expedient. And few listened, which is why most of the Iraqis in the second gulf war buggered off home when the US army came in. They weren't going to fight for him or for a 'nation' Iraq. They were going to wait another day and fight for Islam with the weapons Saddam had left behind. Indeed what they resented was simple - that

a) The US threw its weight around in an egregious fashion and was cavalier with justice (Gitmo bay, Abu Ghraib etc.)
b) That Saddam was never brought to true Islamic justice, instead the mockery of a court the US set up
c) The US had the temerity to invade Baghdad, the capital of the Islamic Empire in its glory days

The consequence of this was - that many Muslims (quite reasonably) assumed that the US believed it had a right to interfere with their beliefs and way of life, that the US wanted to reduce the region to the status of puppet. Saddam was irrelevant to most Muslims, vaguely distasteful, but as you say tolerated. What cannot be tolerated, in their eyes, is the Israeli-US 'pinch' on their politics.
The neocons are idealists - of the nastiest sort.
People tend to associate idealism with woolly-headed fools who never have real consquences and who are essentially harmless. It is forgotten that Hitler was an idealist too, and Nazism an idealistic ideology because the current 'ban' on discussing Nazism as anything but the result of the gates of hell opening out in Germany precludes serious debate on its nature.

[immortalmack]

I don't think of Neo Conservatism as Machiavellian. .
Most of the policies that the neocons have are very Machevelli. Straight out of the Prince. Also Rousseu is his Social Contract, guess what he calls the book of republicans? "The Prince"!

[Oso Mocoso]

Knowing more than a few Muslims, personally, not one of them says it's our morals. It's our politics.

Every time someone makes a statement like this, I just shake my head in disbelief.

Well, not really disbelief per se. It's not hard to understand that people are ignorant, as evidenced by this thread. Generally speaking, the United States used to be viewed with great affection by the Muslim world prior to the political fallout of the World Wars.

The United States was viewed as a scrappy and independent nation that threw off the oppression of the British Empire. Our culture is egalitarian, which is very compatible with the tenets of Islam. When we got into a war with Tripoli, the Muslims thought the USA had some balls, and when pressed to do so fought honorably. Also, that war established in the Muslim mind the idea that the United States was not a Christian nation, but rather a secular one where all religions were respected, including Islam.

The more recent problems are all political. The USA started going into the Middle East and doing a pretty good impression of the British Empire. The Israel / Palestinian issue is the big one, but for the past fifty or so years our foreign policy has been consistently self-serving and arrogant. Pointing fingers at who was responsible, Clinton or Bush, Democrats or Republicans is - as Booyalab said with a measure of understatement - unbelievably retarded.

--Oso

[The Concertinist]

It's not hard to understand that people are ignorant, as evidenced by this thread.

Wow, how big of you. :wub:

[Oso Mocoso]

Wow, how big of you. :wub:

I didn't mean YOU, silly.

--Oso

[The Concertinist]

Oh so now I'm silly?! Do we need to step outside?!
:duel:

Just kiddin' man. Cheers! :cheers:

[Ellipsis]

Maybe Bush was the right man for the Job? Who knows the dems could have in fact reacted a lot worse....I don't think that it matter if Gore won or not for 9/11...the US is a global empire both ways....look at clinton he was probably interfering over there as Bush was....US citizens(the majority) want control and many believe that they are God's gift to earth(not them personally (like they could be) but them as a nation....).they need security they need the big guns pulled out...sure something might have changed but many of the advisors and power players are the same for both sides...the war on terror would have happened(many nations signed up all with diffrent goverments) and would have played out much the same way....Iraq would have changed though....Iraq was choosen not a response liek the war on terror was....Iraq was targeted and it was Bush administration ...the who put the bulls eye sign up...and told the rest of us to fire...still...it might have happened the same way....the majority of the people would still think the same as would the media...

[apple]

Well, global is a bit strong. 9/11 was an attack that was meant to get the US's attention, to let the neocons know that Islam would not go down w/o a fight. Islam is despised by the neocons, not especially on religious grounds, though it is convenient to play up religious differences in garnering support at home, but for economic reasons. Think of the one thing that is dearest beyond all things to a neocon heart and realize that Islam forbids that thing, then know why the neocons have such a hardon against Islam: interest. Usuary is forbidden in the Koran. Devout Muslims in the Middle East do not lend money at interest, do not use credit cards but stick to debit cards. Yes, exceptions can be found, but they are rare and go against the feelings of the Muslim population. Lending money at interest and borrowing money at interest are hated by devout Muslims. This makes them the worst kind of threat to the neocons, whose principle goal is to drive up the debt of their victims. Debt servitude is slavery in the modern world, and the neocons are the modern world's most ardent slave drivers.

Although isn't Saudi Arabia on good terms with the U.S.? (ie, Don't they own part of the U.S.?)

Your implication that 9/11 was entirely the result of Islamic "terrorists" isn't all that different from Bush's standpoint, but it does make you wonder.

[omnirook]

Although isn't Saudi Arabia on good terms with the U.S.? (ie, Don't they own part of the U.S.?)

Your implication that 9/11 was entirely the result of Islamic "terrorists" isn't all that different from Bush's standpoint, but it does make you wonder.

Saudi Arabia's relationship w/the US is controversial. Remember, most of the men accused of the 9/11 attacks were Saudi's - not Iraqi's, as Dubya was happy to have the average American dope believe in his run up to his war in Iraq. Saudi Arabia is officially a US ally; Saudi Arabia does use its huge oil reserves and highly modernized pumping power to affect the price of oil to the US' advantage - but that doesn't mean that the Saudi's don't also finance many of the "terrorist" groups, such as Al Quaeda. Speaking of Al Quaeda - Osama bin Laden is a Saudi! ... Yes, the Saudi's are invested in the US. So? Their investments in the US are tiny compared to the investments of other countries. The largest investor in the US is the UK. If one wants to understand why Tony Blair felt obliged to follow Bush to war, one must understand that the UK is the largest foreign investor in the US, having investments that add up to more than the next several large investors combined. Back in the 80's, when Americans were ranting about Japanese investment in America - because they had noticed Japanese names going up all over the place - Japanese investment in the US was paltry compared to UK investment in the US. But the British have "American" names - or is it the other way around? And the British are white, which makes America comfortable. Stats may have changed lately w/the boom in the Chinese and Indian economies, but the largest investors in the US up until the Bush Admisistration were, in decreasing order, the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands. The UK owned more than the next 3 combined. The reasons that Britain has been our most steadfast ally are numerous and complex; it's not just about money - but money is important. W/the recent oil and banking mergers, the UK is more heavily invested in the US than ever before, and London has quietly replaced New York as the world's financial capital. People the world over have more faith in the pound sterling and in British financial management. After all, it was the British who taught the Americans how to make money at banking.

[Ferrus]

and London has quietly replaced New York as the world's financial capital.
London's return as a major financial centre is largely because of Thatcher who destroyed a lot of the old structures that existed in it and opened it up to lots of American investment banks - although some British investment banks, as you say, have a big prescence in New York too. The square mile is now probably one of the most avaricious places on earth along with Wall Street and without proper local democracy, which it has never had.

[apple]

People the world over have more faith in the pound sterling and in British financial management. After all, it was the British who taught the Americans how to make money at banking.

With the American dollar plummeting on a steady downhill basis, no wonder the world prefers the stability of the GBP. I think the US as a population has little idea how the country is severely in debt and about to fall apart.

[Ferrus]

An interesting post on the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6445135.stm

What interested me was this comment made by a Pakistani:


It's time the Pakistani government and the rest of the world - especially the United States - realised that the solution to the twin problems of extremism and terrorism plaguing every corner of the world at present is NOT military action. Not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, not in Waziristan, not in Islamabad, not in Madrid or London or even the US of A. The more you try and "bomb out" militants, the more strength and support they gain. By targeting innocent civilians in all conflict zones, you are turning ordinary people into militants and extremists. In Pakistan, as long as Musharraf's regime continues to target civilians in Balochistan and suppress the public on one hand, and inflict policies of "enlightened moderation" on the other, the average Pakistani who's basic values are being threatened and who is facing systematic injustice will turn to extreme measures, including militancy.

[Mr.Miagi]

With the American dollar plummeting on a steady downhill basis, no wonder the world prefers the stability of the GBP. I think the US as a population has little idea how the country is severely in debt and about to fall apart.

Well, I don't think the US is about to fall apart. That's a bit of a exagarration. The US had a great 20th century. It should congratulate itself on that. It's remarkable what the US achieved in their country in such a short space of time.

[omnirook]

London's return as a major financial centre is largely because of Thatcher who destroyed a lot of the old structures that existed in it and opened it up to lots of American investment banks - although some British investment banks, as you say, have a big prescence in New York too. The square mile is now probably one of the most avaricious places on earth along with Wall Street and without proper local democracy, which it has never had.

London did indeed slip after World War I - and fell right on its face after World War II. What helped was that London retained its glamor. London is always listed first when a business advertizes that it has an international presence: "London, Paris, New York" are the 3 favorites for stores in New York when it comes time to do a window or an awning. London is still the first among the "world cities" - the favorite place for first time tourists abroad, so that, should they never again have money to travel, at least they will be able to say, "Yes, I've been to London." London and Paris are the most glamorous foreign cities in the eyes of Americans - and, believe it or not, that helped London greatly. Even in the early 1950's, when London was still full of piles of rubble where buildings had once stood, when my father first went there as a US soldier stationed in the UK, going to London was a stop on one's way to Heaven ... And I can never refrain from saying that the British would be out of their minds, completely insane, if they ever seriously considered doing away w/the Monarchy! Like it or not, the Queen is the most famous person in the world, and there are people the world over who would give limbs to say that they had met her ... Charles will make a good king. And it's nonsense that Camilla should not be queen - utter nonsense. I hope that the feelings about that will change. She is a far more suitable person to be Queen Consort than Diana ever would have been. I mention the Monarchy in this context because it is not possible to discuss London's glamor w/o mentioning the Monarchy ... Blair has to be given a lot of credit - if you wish to credit such things - for not reversing Thatcher's policies outright. The problem w/the UK economy and way of doing things before Thatcher was - ? The whole world was in a funk in the 1970's - so to say that UK was particularly off in its way of doing things is to play into the Reaganite camp. Yes, Reagan did wonders for generating cash flow - and piling up debt and unleashing savages who have DESTROYED the United States - DESTROYED it. It's not a country any more; it's a pig-pen, and the dirtiest, smelliest pigs are in charge. When Reagan got started, there were murmurs in the press - which means that the public was deeply worried about what letting the rich do as they pleased would mean. But Reagan smoothed it over and sold it to the public. And it seemed to work. But I knew. I knew what would happen - it was inevitable. Unrestrained, the rich have always done exactly what they have done this time. The whole notion that they could be trusted (!!!!) to see to it that we all prospered ("trickle down") was - INSANE. For millennia, humanity has known that one does NOT leave the fox to guard the chickens! My one hope - and a dark hope it is! - is that we suffer through a depression that makes the Great Depression look like a pic - nic in the park. It was the Great Depression that taught the public to put chains on the rich. The public needs to be reminded.

[dubbeltop]

How do you think the Democrats would have done in power

Flipping the coin doesn't make a difference they still spend your hard earned dollars....

[Ferrus]

My one hope - and a dark hope it is! - is that we suffer through a depression that makes the Great Depression look like a pic - nic in the park. It was the Great Depression that taught the public to put chains on the rich. The public needs to be reminded.
I suspect my left-wingers will agree with you actually, even if they don't publically admit it. I think the Second Great Depression could be the result of overdependence on oil 'Peak Oil', climate change, 'Global Warming', or a hellish mixture of both. If things start to become horrific it is just possible people might, out of a sense of self-preservation, begin to co-operate more economically. In the same way men who have never met each other and who in normal situations may even dislike each other form close bonds with those they have fought with in a war. As I read in an account of a WW1 soldier who noted that when death hangs over you petty things start to lose their prominence.

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

Ferrus and Oso own in here. Great analysis.

As for Democrats vs. Republicans, it's not quite flip a coin, but close to it. Regardless that some of you think we'd all have sweet smelling farts and live on beams of sunshine if Democrats were in power, the truth is that they work for the same corporate interests as the Republicans, and are accountable to the 50% of the American population whose beliefs and traditions differ from those of their respective cores.

I would have been afraid that with Gore in power after 9/11, there would have been some real resistance among the military, expressed either as passive-aggression or outright insubordination.There would also have been less faith among the public that the commander-in-chief would have taken convincing action against the threat, so disorder and vigilantism might have occurred more than they did. Bush in his early years had a calming effect on the country and came off like a solid representative of American values backed up by two generations of sharp foreign-policy people. After 9/11 I remember sighs of relief that he had taken office over Gore, who still comes off like a pseudo-scientific twerp with no political sense. Of course, that was before the "celebratory" looting started in Iraq after the invation--and after the search for WMD's was given up as futile.

And for those of you thinking that 9/11 never would have happened without Bush in power--I would have to ask whether or not the USS Cole and the Khobar towers would have happened, either. Hmmm? Maybe that's a three-fer against W. What say you?

[omnirook]

I suspect my left-wingers will agree with you actually, even if they don't publically admit it. I think the Second Great Depression could be the result of overdependence on oil 'Peak Oil', climate change, 'Global Warming', or a hellish mixture of both. If things start to become horrific it is just possible people might, out of a sense of self-preservation, begin to co-operate more economically. In the same way men who have never met each other and who in normal situations may even dislike each other form close bonds with those they have fought with in a war. As I read in an account of a WW1 soldier who noted that when death hangs over you petty things start to lose their prominence.

It's all a matter of perspective; it's all a matter of what one considers "progress." To me, creating a world where the top one 1000th of one percent can wind up owning everything and everybody is NOT progress. Progress has little to do w/creating an ever-growing mountain of creature comforts for those "who can afford it." Now New Yorkers are being "treated" to advertisements for a toilet that features hook ups for the Internet, hook ups for digital games, and - a beer tap! ... Say what you want, it's my opinion that nobody needs such a thing and that anybody who spends money on such a thing is - subhuman! People are starving, and you've got the balls to think that you deserve to waste money - even if it is your money - on a "techno throne" ? Give me a fucking break! Sorry - one nice house, one nice car, decent clothes - be satisfied! Fuck! There are people who have no homes, who don't get enough to eat - and it has nothing to do w/their being lazy, stupid, or in any way inferior. "Oh, omnirook, you're such a hypocrite!" OK - but at least we make sure that our people make a living, have healthcare, and get a chance to send their kids to college. Yeah, we piled up money - but that was to give us power, and at least we're doing what the rich should do w/their money and power. I will NOT let go of the idea that we ARE our brothers' keepers. It is our RESPONSIBILITY to see to it that the less fortunate are not left to rot, are not made to suffer unnecessarily, are not humiliated and RAPED at every turn ... A slob would argue that the rich are supporting the people who make things such as the "techno throne." Big deal. Human creativity and effort were wasted on making such a thing because there would - in this pig-sty - be a market for such a thing. We should all be ashamed of that.

[omnirook]

Ferrus and Oso own in here. Great analysis.

As for Democrats vs. Republicans, it's not quite flip a coin, but close to it. Regardless that some of you think we'd all have sweet smelling farts and live on beams of sunshine if Democrats were in power, the truth is that they work for the same corporate interests as the Republicans, and are accountable to the 50% of the American population whose beliefs and traditions differ from those of their respective cores.

I would have been afraid that with Gore in power after 9/11, there would have been some real resistance among the military, expressed either as passive-aggression or outright insubordination.There would also have been less faith among the public that the commander-in-chief would have taken convincing action against the threat, so disorder and vigilantism might have occurred more than they did. Bush in his early years had a calming effect on the country and came off like a solid representative of American values backed up by two generations of sharp foreign-policy people. After 9/11 I remember sighs of relief that he had taken office over Gore, who still comes off like a pseudo-scientific twerp with no political sense. Of course, that was before the "celebratory" looting started in Iraq after the invation--and after the search for WMD's was given up as futile.

And for those of you thinking that 9/11 never would have happened without Bush in power--I would have to ask whether or not the USS Cole and the Khobar towers would have happened, either. Hmmm? Maybe that's a three-fer against W. What say you?

We do forget that Dubya became president after the Supreme Court cut off the count in Florida. We also forget that the count was completed, eventhough it no longer mattered. Surprise, surprise, Gore would have won. Apparently, the real will of the people was that the Clinton legacy be carried forward. Clinton had raised the status of the US around the world to its highest level ever. Wow! America was actually loved, was actually seen as what it had always deemed itself - a force for good and decency. And Clinton had NOT played softball every time. He bombed Iraq regularly to keep Saddam Hussein down - yes, that was COLIN POWELL informing the UN that Hussein was so beaten down that he was no longer a threat to even his own people. Clinton invaded the Balkans - and he told Chavez to back off his ideas for forcing up the price of oil by telling him that the US would consider any such effort an act of war and would act accordingly. What a pussy! Gee - Clinton was such a bad president! Now we're hated - even our allies despise us. Now the world is in turmoil. Now there are plots against us where before there was good will. Now we are paying above $3/gallon for gas - and our Federal Government is BANKRUPT and getting deeper into debt every minute of every day. Clinton was lambasted because he included the Chinese in naval security exercises - but Dubya's a great guy because he has only made sure that China OWNS the United States. W/o the 2 BILLION dollars per week that the Chinese are loaning us, our government would collapse. We should all sleep soundly w/Dubya at the helm. As long as the US President wears a ten-gallon hat and walks like John Wayne, well, America's doing just fine. Hello - Nuremburg established in international law - law that we accepted! - that soldiers who follow immoral orders are CRIMINALS and can be punished - orders, even from God, are never, ever an excuse: before any oath of loyalty to any leader or country, a soldier has a superceding obligation to humanity, even if the price is his own life. In other words, the decision at Nuremburg was that it was the duty of the German soldiers to stand still while they were shot for insubordination, rather than follow the criminal orders of their criminal leaders. Invading Iraq was a violation of international law and, therefore, immoral - it was a crime. If we had to worry about the military becoming defiant, the Pentagon should have told Dubya to go fuck his mother when he ordered them to attack Iraq. At this point, the military should tell Bush "It's over. We're coming home. Fuck you."

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

We do forget that Dubya became president after the Supreme Court cut off the count in Florida.

No, we don't forget that: you project that 'ignorance' on to others. The truth is that the difference came down to 500 votes or so--almost too close to call. The Democrats were all for calling the election at the end of each re-count that decided in their favor, even before mail-in votes that likely would have tipped it in favor of the Republicans were counted. It looked like we were on the verge of an infinite procession of recounts. The case ended up in the Supreme Court, but in the background Gore was persuaded to back off --wisely--when he realized that he wasn't connecting with the public as the "true winner" and was just ditching whatever remained of his ill-starred political career.


Clinton had raised the status of the US around the world to its highest level ever. Wow! America was actually loved, was actually seen as what it had always deemed itself - a force for good and decency.

Except among the people who wanted to kill us and still do. Clinton did a good job of selling himself as a leader among people sensitive to sexual mojo. I think that's most of Europe. If you're superficial enough to care about such things, well hey. . . that's what Democracy is about I guess.


And Clinton had NOT played softball every time.

. . . .
blah
blah
blah .. . .


Invading Iraq was a violation of international law and, therefore, immoral - it was a crime. If we had to worry about the military becoming defiant, the Pentagon should have told Dubya to go fuck his mother when he ordered them to attack Iraq. At this point, the military should tell Bush "It's over. We're coming home. Fuck you."

Well, we are excitable today, no? :rant:

You won't get an argument from me that the invasion of Iraq wasn't misinformed and stupidly-handled. Someone seems to have assumed we were liberating France from the Nazis and not just turning the devil loose in a non-country long presided over by a criminal strong man. Bush has since revealed himself many times as detached and ineffective leader not up to the job. Iraq was a major mistake, and we'll pay trillions for it.

But by bringing Iraq into this conversation you're in a way doing what we misinformed twits in flyover country do all the time: Confusing Iraq for 9/11. A month after 9/11 we were taking action to bring order and government to Afganistan, which had been left to the wolves and the Taliban (and Al Queda) after the Soviets pulled out. America was doing the needful that Clinton and his cronies had ignored for 8 years while cavorting with sancimonious Hollywood progressives, and the world cheered. Had we stayed on that track--turning Afganistan into our 'city on the hill' while continuing to contain Sadaam--we'd still have the world on our side and Bush would be seen as somewhat of a statesman. What really caused him to take off after Sadaam might remain only a topic for speculation until long after all parties involved have died.

BTW: I know some people who worked for the FBI in the '90's. They were on the verge of some major developments in surveillance of people involved with Ramseh Yusef (remember the FIRST WTC attack, or do we forget that?) when a directive came down from the commander in chief to turn their attention to videotape piracy. Guess anti-terrorism just wasn't his thing.

[Ferrus]

Now New Yorkers are being "treated" to advertisements for a toilet that features hook ups for the Internet, hook ups for digital games, and - a beer tap! ... Say what you want, it's my opinion that nobody needs such a thing and that anybody who spends money on such a thing is - subhuman! People are starving, and you've got the balls to think that you deserve to waste money - even if it is your money - on a "techno throne" ?
Even if people weren't starving in abundant numbers it seems a profligate waste of precious resources anyway. And one has to ask, what does this ridiculous process lead to? Does having this 'techno throne' even make you that happy except for the brief thrill of having a beer whilst you shit? Is it worth the time you may have worked to pay for the bloody thing? So resources are diverted from necessities to pay for bric-a-brac that isn't even of much use to the owner. Consumerism is founded on absurdity and shallowness. And this is the dream which America wanted to import to Iraq - is it surprising that these pious, proud, and contemplative people (the Arab tribes in Iraq) took an instant dislike?

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

Even if people weren't starving in abundant numbers it seems a profligate waste of precious resources anyway. And one has to ask, what does this ridiculous lead to?

I think the same thing every time I look at a fancy stereo system or a giant-screen TV. I think the same thing when I see people spending their money on dumb things like RV's and boats and expensive BBQ grills or stupid little gift items. I think most of these things are stupid wastes of money and would be expelled from our economy if there were any justice.

Then, I realize that millions of people owe their livelihoods to that shit. The ones who make it, sell it, service it, resell and reclaim it. I think of the taxes paid on the income people fight to earn just to afford that shit, and the sales tax revenue they pay when the buy it. I think of people in countries like Indonesia and the Phillipines who'd be close to starvation and and living off of handouts if they weren't employed in the industries that make or support that crap. I think of the next generation that those people are currently raising who will depend on the debased appetites of fat-assed Americans to make a living.

Then I sit back, open a beer and realize I'm not that good at being a romantic any longer.

[Ferrus]

Then, I realize that millions of people owe their livelihoods to that shit. The ones who make it, sell it, service it, resell and reclaim it. I think of the taxes paid on the income people fight to earn just to afford that shit, and the sales tax revenue they pay when the buy it. I think of people in countries like Indonesia and the Phillipines who'd be close to starvation and and living off of handouts if they weren't employed in the industries that make or support that crap. I think of the next generation that those people are currently raising who will depend on the debased appetites of fat-assed Americans to make a living.
Except - it is not utterly unconceivable that the energy that is expended on producing such goods could be transferred to more practical projects which have a wider range of utily. In the hours a worker spends building a plasma TV, he could have built 20 servicable TVs which would bring the price down to a level affordable to more.

Such a transformation doesn't even require nationalisation - it could easily be achieved through government incentives.

[apple]

It's all a matter of perspective; it's all a matter of what one considers "progress." To me, creating a world where the top one 1000th of one percent can wind up owning everything and everybody is NOT progress. Progress has little to do w/creating an ever-growing mountain of creature comforts for those "who can afford it." Now New Yorkers are being "treated" to advertisements for a toilet that features hook ups for the Internet, hook ups for digital games, and - a beer tap! ... Say what you want, it's my opinion that nobody needs such a thing and that anybody who spends money on such a thing is - subhuman!

C'est degoulaste. I suppose someone with a bad taste for bodily functions humor thought up that ingenious idea.

Although I think technology is a great thing that we should embrace with open arms. Technology isn't the enemy here- and I sort of think you're making an erroneous comparison by using socio-economic disparities as a red herring to conceal the underlying problem---which is how educational institutions have become a big business, which is the largest contributing factor coupled with the black market trade of street drugs that keeps the poor and starving in their place.

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

In the hours a worker spends building a plasma TV, he could have built 20 servicable TVs which would bring the price down to a level affordable to more.

You mean the old style that is heavier, more expensive to ship, uses more electricity, takes up more space in landfills, and has its value deflated in the market by the "nice flat ones" that everyone wants (thus making the value of the old style tv-maker's labor less valuable)? Are those the TV's they should be making instead of the nice ones that people want to buy?


Such a transformation doesn't even require nationalisation - it could easily be achieved through government incentives.

I would think that the better part of a century of Socialism and its more diluted command-and-control cousins would have proven out what government incentives can and can't achieve. The best incentive a government can give industry is to largely stay the hell out of the way. That means none of the disgusting corporate welfare that the US dishes out, either.

I don't think the American system is right for everywhere in the world. We suck--we honestly do. Way too many people suffer for stupid reasons in this country. But the preference for free markets among people who actually need to engage in economic activity (not just work for some government office) seems to be a universal proven out time and time again. It's such a natural tendency that people like Castro need to stomp out little markets that arise from their salted ground like weeds.

[apple]

But by bringing Iraq into this conversation you're in a way doing what we misinformed twits in flyover country do all the time: Confusing Iraq for 9/11. A month after 9/11 we were taking action to bring order and government to Afganistan, which had been left to the wolves and the Taliban (and Al Queda) after the Soviets pulled out. America was doing the needful that Clinton and his cronies had ignored for 8 years while cavorting with sancimonious Hollywood progressives, and the world cheered. Had we stayed on that track--turning Afganistan into our 'city on the hill' while continuing to contain Sadaam--we'd still have the world on our side and Bush would be seen as somewhat of a statesman. What really caused him to take off after Sadaam might remain only a topic for speculation until long after all parties involved have died.


You're assuming that the US had any business in Afghanistan.
Also, the Bush Administration went against the majority of the United Nations and declared war against their wishes. Even Bush's boyish charm wouldn't have save his administration from such a major diplomatic faux pas and world wide disgrace. Not to mention, Cheney only benefitted from the "rebuilding" of Iraq while the rest of the country went into serious debt. According to Machiavellian standards and ethics, that would make Cheney and Co, ineffective as leaders and deplorable as statesmen, setting the stage for the disassembling and destruction of America.

Under Clinton, this would never have occurred.

[Ferrus]

You mean the old style that is heavier, more expensive to ship, uses more electricity, takes up more space in landfills, and has its value deflated in the market by the "nice flat ones" that everyone wants (thus making the value of the old style tv-maker's labor less valuable)? Are those the TV's they should be making instead of the nice ones that people want to buy?
That a select elite want to buy.

I don't doubt markets emerge spontaneously, but the government does not necessarily have to be helpless in the face of the big national market.

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

That a select elite want to buy.

At one time only the select elite had cars, radios, CD players, pacemakers, enclosed rooms, VCR's, coffee makers. . . oh . . and computers, too. That's how technology works in an open market: It keeps getting pushed down to the masses, with the initial cost of production investment paid for by millions of superficial halfwits who just NEED to have the latest whatever even at an obscene cost.

In five years most tube-type TV's will be in museums or landfills. Poor-ass grandmas will have 42" plasma screens on their walls, handed down from their children who wanted a 60" instead.

What's visible on those TV's will still suck. That's not in the realm technology. It's art, and it usually doesn't improve over time ;)


I don't doubt markets emerge spontaneously, but the government does not necessarily have to be helpless in the face of the big national market.

Governments aren't helpless, but their main efforts should be towards nurturing natural tendencies towards better, more efficient markets. Dictating the nature of what gets produced and consumed in the interest of social justice is a bad idea.

[Ferrus]

At one time only the select elite had cars, radios, CD players, pacemakers, enclosed rooms, VCR's, coffee makers. . . oh . . and computers, too. That's how technology works in an open market: It keeps getting pushed down to the masses, with the initial cost of production investment paid for by millions of superficial halfwits who just NEED to have the latest whatever even at an obscene cost.

In five years most tube-type TV's will be in museums or landfills. Poor-ass grandmas will have 42" plasma screens on their walls, handed down from their children who wanted a 60" instead.
If of course in your world nothing more than America, Europe and South-East Asia actually exist.


Governments aren't helpless, but their main efforts should be towards nurturing natural tendencies towards better, more efficient markets. Dictating the nature of what gets produced and consumed in the interest of social justice is a bad idea.
So you think education should be completely privatised?

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

You're assuming that the US had any business in Afghanistan.

Apparently there were a few people based in Afganistan who thought they had some business in New York back in '01. And in Kenya a few years before. And in Yemen a year earlier. And in Khobar in '96.


Also, the Bush Administration went against the majority of the United Nations and declared war against their wishes.

You're assuming that the United Nations is viable as a governing body, and not just as a criminal fencing racket and a repository of feel-good progressivist sentiment. Also, remember that the UN supported actions in Afganistan following 9/11.

So do we both agree from different perspectives that the UN is a phony institution populated by a bunch of self-serving retards? Hmm? :highfive:


Under Clinton, this would never have occurred.

Correct, since the precipitating event didn't occur until a few short months after he left office. You're right there.

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

If of course in your world nothing more than America, Europe and South-East Asia actually exist.

So in your world no one in Australia, Africa, South America or the Middle-East owns a coffeemaker or a TV? Or maybe they're too noble to want the better ones?


So you think education should be completely privatised?

Completely? No. We'll always have people who need to be wards of the state. Primary and secondary education will need some government oversight. Vouchers are generally a good thing because they force the government-run schools to be accountable somewhat. As far was higher education is concerned: Name a few of the top universities for technology, medicine, law, business. . . the ones that people from all over the world want to attend. The ones that turn out the most valued research: Private or Public?

[Ferrus]

So in your world no one in Australia, Africa, South America or the Middle-East owns a coffeemaker or a TV? Or maybe they're too noble to want the better ones?
Excluding Australia - a great many people in Africa, the Middle-East and South America are without food or proper housing (favellas anyone?) let along a coffee maker.

Completely? As far was higher education is concerned: Name a few of the top universities for technology, medicine, law, business. . .
Private, of course (although Oxford and Cambridge are public 50% of their intake is from fee-paying secondary schools), but name the people who go to these universities: the same rich families generation in, generation out.

[apple]

Apparently there were a few people based in Afganistan who thought they had some business in New York back in '01. And in Kenya a few years before. And in Yemen a year earlier. And in Khobar in '96.

It was never substantiated that Afghanistan had anything to do with 9/11 nor I don't see the relevance in bringing up Yemen and Kenya nor Khobar when the bombing in '96 was blamed on the Iranian government.



You're assuming that the United Nations is viable as a governing body, and not just as a criminal fencing racket and a repository of feel-good progressivist sentiment. Also, remember that the UN supported actions in Afganistan following 9/11.

What's wrong with progressivist sentiment? You say it like it's a bad thing.


So do we both agree from different perspectives that the UN is a phony institution populated by a bunch of self-serving retards? Hmm? :highfive:

:lol: No, that voice in your head wasn't me




Correct, since the precipitating event didn't occur until a few short months after he left office. You're right there.

A coincidental timing of the worst magnitude. The only thing we can hope for now is that Hillary will clean up the mess.

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

Excluding Australia - a great many people in Africa, the Middle-East and South America are without food or proper housing (favellas anyone?) let along a coffee maker.

Agreed. And there are people in the US who are hungry and/or without simple medical care. It's only human decency to want to help them. I think they can best be helped not by manipulating markets in the name of social envy, but by indulging the rich and wanna-be-rich and exploiting the industry and wealth that naturally arise from their "animal spirts".


Private, of course (although Oxford and Cambridge are public 50% of their intake is from fee-paying secondary schools), but name the people who go to these universities: the same rich families generation in, generation out.

Don't know about that. Maybe in the UK, which I understand still labors under a half-dead class system. In the US our elite private universities have endowments large enough to finance scholarships for a good percentage of the the poor who apply and are accepted. Granted, a place like Yale is still generally a holding pen for soft-headed spawn of the priviledged class, but education at even private universities is somewhat open regardless of income.

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

It was never substantiated that Afghanistan had anything to do with 9/11 nor I don't see the relevance in bringing up Yemen and Kenya nor Khobar when the bombing in '96 was blamed on the Iranian government.

Those events are generally blamed on Al Queda and the efforts of Osama bin Laden (remember him)? He was operating out of Afganistan at the time. He found it an easy place to hang because Afganistan didn't have a functioning, responsible government. Unless you were a Taliban supporter? Hmmm?

Oh, and Clinton fired a bunch of Cruise missles into Afganistan the day after he was indicted in the Paula Jones case to divert attention from the ugliness of the women he sacrificed his legacy for, so Dubya had some precedent from his illustrious forebear.



What's wrong with progressivist sentiment? You say it like it's a bad thing.


I think it's a great thing in Frank Capra movies.



A coincidental timing of the worst magnitude. The only thing we can hope for now is that Hillary will clean up the mess.

You know, I think it will take a Republican president to get the troops out of Iraq. A Democrat would bring blame for any shit that happens after the pull-out down on his own party--unjustly I think. A Republican can play it off like it was the burden he had to bear manfully--"It takes a man to admit he was wrong"--that kind of tripe. We can hope that Bush sees some sense and tries to rescue something of a legacy by pulling them out before the '08 election.

[apple]

Those events are generally blamed on Al Queda and the efforts of Osama bin Laden (remember him)? He was operating out of Afganistan at the time. He found it an easy place to hang because Afganistan didn't have a functioning, responsible government. Unless you were a Taliban supporter? Hmmm?

The Taliban don't have the kind of resources to execute what happened on 9/11. If anything that was simply a way to distract the American People by introducing an inept scapegoat who was shown walking around a desert with old 1970s firing equipment.


Oh, and Clinton fired a bunch of Cruise missles into Afganistan the day after he was indicted in the Paula Jones case to divert attention from the ugliness of the women he sacrificed his legacy for, so Dubya had some precedent from his illustrious forebear.

So you seem to be sayig here that the media is more interested in a handsome President's sexual exploits than the good he accomplished as President?


I think it's a great thing in Frank Capra movies.

:lol: With such films like "Know your enemy: Japan", "Prelude to War", "The Battle of China", "Platinum Blonde" and "Mr Smith Goes to Washington, I'm not certain I would call him progressivist sentimentalist- perhaps pre-neo-conservative is a better fit



You know, I think it will take a Republican president to get the troops out of Iraq. A Democrat would bring blame for any shit that happens after the pull-out down on his own party--unjustly I think. A Republican can play it off like it was the burden he had to bear manfully--"It takes a man to admit he was wrong"--that kind of tripe. We can hope that Bush sees some sense and tries to rescue something of a legacy by pulling them out before the '08 election.

I doubt it. I think Hillary's diplomacy skills and experience is what is going to be America's saving grace. She's a globally minded- international thinker. If another Republican becomes elected, he'll finish and destroy what is left of the United States.

[IntenseNitroTruckPow]

The Taliban don't have the kind of resources to execute what happened on 9/11. If anything that was simply a way to distract the American People by introducing an inept scapegoat who was shown walking around a desert with old 1970s firing equipment.


The Taliban didn't do it. They just provided the crash pad, mannn. Osama isn't Afgani. He's Saudi. Are you saying that something like 9/11 is beyond the ken of not only the Taliban, but all backwards little Arab peoples--even the rich one with lots of ties to the infidel world?


So you seem to be sayig here that the media is more interested in a handsome President's sexual exploits than the good he accomplished as President?

Yes, that's what I'm saying. That's why a wise and good leader doesn't let it become an issue. It detracts from the job hes entrusted to do. A good leader doesn't get his rocks off in a under circumstances that could make his leadership less credible. Why? Because people love to hear about this shit and there is no limit to the media's ability to exploit it, even at the expense of covering real issues.


:lol: With such films like "Know your enemy: Japan", "Prelude to War", "The Battle of China", "Platinum Blonde" and "Mr Smith Goes to Washington, I'm not certain I would call him progressivist sentimentalist- perhaps pre-neo-conservative is a better fit

Well, then we both agree that he was a dipshit who embedded dangerous, politically loaded sentimental messages into his works! Way to go! I knew I liked you, man! :highfive:


I doubt it. I think Hillary's diplomacy skills and experience is what is going to be America's saving grace. She's a globally minded- international thinker.

So is she going to sell even more of our country out to the Chinese? Will our infrastructure be even more overwhelmed by illegal immigrants? Will poverty disappear and will oppressed peoples be liberated? Stay tuned, I guess.

[apple]

The Taliban didn't do it. They just provided the crash pad, mannn. Osama isn't Afgani. He's Saudi. Are you saying that something like 9/11 is beyond the ken of not only the Taliban, but all backwards little Arab peoples--even the rich one with lots of ties to the infidel world?


My point was that it wasn't substantiated either way- Osama- the black sheep of the powerful and wealthy bin Laden family was a convenient scapegoat during a time of crisis.


Yes, that's what I'm saying. That's why a wise and good leader doesn't let it become an issue. It detracts from the job hes entrusted to do. A good leader doesn't get his rocks off in a under circumstances that could make his leadership less credible. Why? Because people love to hear about this shit and there is no limit to the media's ability to exploit it, even at the expense of covering real issues.

There is a problem when the media uses it as a tool to distract from the real issues. American media thrives on sex scandals, missing women and shark attacks.


Well, then we both agree that he was a dipshit who embedded dangerous, politically loaded sentimental messages into his works! Way to go! I knew I liked you, man! :highfive:

Your charm will only work on me for so long :grin:



So is she going to sell even more of our country out to the Chinese? Will our infrastructure be even more overwhelmed by illegal immigrants? Will poverty disappear and will oppressed peoples be liberated? Stay tuned, I guess.

That will be certain under a Republican President minus elimination of poverty. In fact, it's what happening right now.

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My point was that it wasn't substantiated either way- Osama- the black sheep of the powerful and wealthy bin Laden family was a convenient scapegoat during a time of crisis.

I think you're dipping into the realm of the conspiracy theory. History might prove out that 9/11 wasn't Osama's doing, but that's how it looked 7 years ago, and the previous administration would have been in their rights to arrest him, freeze his assets, impede him in some way based on things that have come to light since. Would doing that have stopped 9/11? I don't think we'll ever know. Hard to prove how something would not have happened.


There is a problem when the media uses it as a tool to distract from the real issues. American media thrives on sex scandals, missing women and shark attacks.

Which has the greater circulation: Congressional Record or People?
Which has more viewership: CSPAN or Entertainment Tonight?
Why does the Goddamned Fox Network jump on a story about a missing hot blonde co-ed and beat it to death? Because none of their advertisers want to pitch to those interested in such things?

Are all these things the result of some evil genius within the vast right-wing conspiracy? Or is it more likely that we humans just like to hear naughty stories and salacious gossip about people's private lives, and will pay attention to whomever indulges this natural curiousity? If it's the latter, then I guess public figures probably shouldn't put themselves into a position where it can be proven that they came all over their interns and stuck cigars in naughty places--because once it's out in the open, nothing else will matter to most people. Make sense?

It's called discretion. Clinton didn't master it. Thus, he'll be remembered as that guy with a bitchy wife who liked to get hummers from fat chix who looked like Ruth Buzzi while radical Islam surged and the world started burning. This is the personal price he paid.



That will be certain under a Republican President minus elimination of poverty. In fact, it's what happening right now.

Agreed. We're in a bad spot and it looks like it's going to get worse.

[omnirook]

No, we don't forget that: you project that 'ignorance' on to others. The truth is that the difference came down to 500 votes or so--almost too close to call. The Democrats were all for calling the election at the end of each re-count that decided in their favor, even before mail-in votes that likely would have tipped it in favor of the Republicans were counted. It looked like we were on the verge of an infinite procession of recounts. The case ended up in the Supreme Court, but in the background Gore was persuaded to back off --wisely--when he realized that he wasn't connecting with the public as the "true winner" and was just ditching whatever remained of his ill-starred political career.



Except among the people who wanted to kill us and still do. Clinton did a good job of selling himself as a leader among people sensitive to sexual mojo. I think that's most of Europe. If you're superficial enough to care about such things, well hey. . . that's what Democracy is about I guess.



Well, we are excitable today, no? :rant:

You won't get an argument from me that the invasion of Iraq wasn't misinformed and stupidly-handled. Someone seems to have assumed we were liberating France from the Nazis and not just turning the devil loose in a non-country long presided over by a criminal strong man. Bush has since revealed himself many times as detached and ineffective leader not up to the job. Iraq was a major mistake, and we'll pay trillions for it.

But by bringing Iraq into this conversation you're in a way doing what we misinformed twits in flyover country do all the time: Confusing Iraq for 9/11. A month after 9/11 we were taking action to bring order and government to Afganistan, which had been left to the wolves and the Taliban (and Al Queda) after the Soviets pulled out. America was doing the needful that Clinton and his cronies had ignored for 8 years while cavorting with sancimonious Hollywood progressives, and the world cheered. Had we stayed on that track--turning Afganistan into our 'city on the hill' while continuing to contain Sadaam--we'd still have the world on our side and Bush would be seen as somewhat of a statesman. What really caused him to take off after Sadaam might remain only a topic for speculation until long after all parties involved have died.

BTW: I know some people who worked for the FBI in the '90's. They were on the verge of some major developments in surveillance of people involved with Ramseh Yusef (remember the FIRST WTC attack, or do we forget that?) when a directive came down from the commander in chief to turn their attention to videotape piracy. Guess anti-terrorism just wasn't his thing.

It was more than 500 votes, sorry. But ONE vote would have made the difference - an historic difference ... It doesn't matter. It wasn't the first stolen election, and it won't be the last. What does matter is that the pile of shit that is called "Mr President" has loused things up so badly that even the media is beginning to distance itself - for the first time in 6 1/2 years, Bush is finally getting some bad press and some rough treatment from his fan club. Republicans - starting w/Spector - are beginning to jump ship. Tonight, Barney Frank was up doing a 2 AM radio program to act as point man, clarifying the moves that are being made now that there is a groundswell for impeachment. Tonight, Frank made clear just what the Democrats have in mind, which essentially is going to be forcing Bush to get out of Iraq by the Congress voting funding for withdrawal and nothing else. If he vetoes the measure - which he will - enough Republicans have privately agreed to get articles of impeachment passed. Meanwhile, that sack of incompetence, that national embarrassment, that walking joke, Gonzalez is going down. If he does not bow to pressure to resign, he will be impeached, and there are enough Republicans to get him removed - no matter what the so-called president thinks about it. Gonzalez was handed the loaded revolver this week when the Congress demanded that he turn over documents regarding his conversations w/his former boss, Ashcroft. If he refuses, he will be found in contempt of Congress. Federal judges have already let the Congress know that they will not uphold Executive Privilege in this matter. Oliver North lied to Congress - but he at least made sure that he had his story straight. This fucking Gonzalez is too stupid to do even that much. Blatantly lying to Congress will not be tolerated, especially since Bush does not have Reagan's popularity stats.

Before becoming president, Bush bankrupted 3 corporations, then he bankrupted the State of Texas. When he left office in Texas, Texas had sunk to the level of being the Union's official poorest state, displacing Mississippi for the first time since the Civil War. That was the jewel that the public preferred to Gore? I wasn't thrilled w/Gore, either - but I would have had Reagan back rather than give the White House to Bush - and that's saying something because, prior to this nightmare, Reagan was MY "worst president ever." At least Reagan was charming, cute, likable - and he could get through a speech w/o fucking it up to the point that the Secret Service agents standing behind him had to bite their tounges to keep from laughing ... I was talking to a British client tonight. He told me what I knew - my mother's family are English - the British simply cannot believe that someone so obviously stupid and incompetent was ever allowed to be president.

I have NEVER confused Iraq with 9/11 - never. We had no right, never mind business, going to war in Iraq. It was monstrous - and the blood of - what is it? - 600,000 people is on our hands - and for nothing, except the ego of a mental midget - and the oil business - and the bottom line of CHENEY'S company.

If it were up to me, the heads of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, and even Ashcroft would be on spikes in the Oval Office as a warning to the next corporate whore to steal the presidency. So, yeah, I'm in a bad mood. I'm against capital punishment - vehemently. Not even bin Laden would get the needle if it were up to me - but Bush would. Why? He thought nothing of sending even the mentally retarded to their deaths. Let him have a lie down and a jab - let it be televised, then let his head be lopped off and put on a pole.

[Ferrus]

I wasn't thrilled w/Gore, either
I never used to think much of Gore, but in recent years (perhaps no longer so worried about the voter's verdict) he has struck me as a fairly intelligent and thoughtful man. Who, even with the pressures of holding public office, one should think would haven give at least a modicum of deliberation over his policies instead of the knee-jerk gung ho rationale of the Bush administration.

Something else has struck me as naive - this attitude that you could rebuild Iraq like Germany or Japan. In 1945 the German and Japanese people were utterly fed up with the old system of government which had caused such pain to their countries. The ideologies underpinning both regimes had been bankrupted. The ideology that undergirds opposition to the US in Iraq and the whole Islamic world has not been bankrupted. It is on the assurgence and it has more than enough followers ready to die for it than even the US military in all its technological grandeur can snuff out. Did the US think that by toppling the regime of a secular government, and putting in puppet government that has no control outside the Green Zone would break the back of Islamcism, instead of inspiring them to even more indignation and confidence as an important occulsion is sunk, affording them a ready made charnel house-cum-recruitment drive?

The more I analyse it, the more it is becoming clear in my mind that it was an abombinale folly. And, what is worse, what comes around, goes around. I am a member of the Labour party - old Labour, a socialist, if you wish - and it saddens me greatly to see a Labour leader, a quondam socialist, in his pride and his foolish belief that he could use Bush in the same way he used Clinton to espouse liberal humanism through military force (I, at the time found his actions confusing, but recent reports suggest that was it). He believed he could control Bush, he had no real plan how he would, but ultimately he failed and it was the US government who pushed Britain, Rumsfield informed the British army that if they waited for the U.N. when the US was ready to go in they would be left behind at the Kuwaiti border. Apparently Blair in 2004-5 become despondent about the issue and was ready to leave office before his closest advisors told him not to. Blair has put up a front about all this, I wonder what he really thinks. Has he deluded himself now that it was all right, or is he secretly ruing his mistake? I doubt we'll find out for some time. If it was a bloody venal Tory, what else would one expect? But a man once of the Left, who once supported the coal miners against Thatcher's truncheon, has now aligned himself with a fanatical right winger, a man with bloodguilt and allowed the UK, against the wishes of the majority of its population to engage in adventurism even Disraeli himself would blush at. It is a little know fact, but the Iraq war was the first overtly aggresive war the UK has fought since the Boer War at the turn of the last century. What is more in so doing he has created an canker in the heart of the Muslims living here who are now more convinced than ever that Britian is the enemy, something the US, with its small and passive Muslim population doesn't have to concern itself with. Even a corrupt, rich conservative, Jacque Chirac saw what was coming and cut himself away from it. I wish Brown had the balls to dissociate himself completely from the enterprise, as did the new socialist Spanish Prime Minister.

[omnirook]

I never used to think much of Gore, but in recent years (perhaps no longer so worried about the voter's verdict) he has struck me as a fairly intelligent and thoughtful man. Who, even with the pressures of holding public office, one should think would haven give at least a modicum of deliberation over his policies instead of the knee-jerk gung ho rationale of the Bush administration.

Something else has struck me as naive - this attitude that you could rebuild Iraq like Germany or Japan. In 1945 the German and Japanese people were utterly fed up with the old system of government which had caused such pain to their countries. The ideologies underpinning both regimes had been bankrupted. The ideology that undergirds opposition to the US in Iraq and the whole Islamic world has not been bankrupted. It is on the assurgence and it has more than enough followers ready to die for it than even the US military in all its technological grandeur can snuff out. Did the US think that by toppling the regime of a secular government, and putting in puppet government that has no control outside the Green Zone would break the back of Islamcism, instead of inspiring them to even more indignation and confidence as an important occulsion is sunk, affording them a ready made charnel house-cum-recruitment drive?

The more I analyse it, the more it is becoming clear in my mind that it was an abombinale folly. And, what is worse, what comes around, goes around. I am a member of the Labour party - old Labour, a socialist, if you wish - and it saddens me greatly to see a Labour leader, a quondam socialist, in his pride and his foolish belief that he could use Bush in the same way he used Clinton to espouse liberal humanism through military force (I, at the time found his actions confusing, but recent reports suggest that was it). He believed he could control Bush, he had no real plan how he would, but ultimately he failed and it was the US government who pushed Britain, Rumsfield informed the British army that if they waited for the U.N. when the US was ready to go in they would be left behind at the Kuwaiti border. Apparently Blair in 2004-5 become despondent about the issue and was ready to leave office before his closest advisors told him not to. Blair has put up a front about all this, I wonder what he really thinks. Has he deluded himself now that it was all right, or is he secretly ruing his mistake? I doubt we'll find out for some time. If it was a bloody venal Tory, what else would one expect? But a man once of the Left, who once supported the coal miners against Thatcher's truncheon, has now aligned himself with a fanatical right winger, a man with bloodguilt and allowed the UK, against the wishes of the majority of its population to engage in adventurism even Disraeli himself would blush at. It is a little know fact, but the Iraq war was the first overtly aggresive war the UK has fought since the Boer War at the turn of the last century. What is more in so doing he has created an canker in the heart of the Muslims living here who are now more convinced than ever that Britian is the enemy, something the US, with its small and passive Muslim population doesn't have to concern itself with. Even a corrupt, rich conservative, Jacque Chirac saw what was coming and cut himself away from it. I wish Brown had the balls to dissociate himself completely from the enterprise, as did the new socialist Spanish Prime Minister.

Gore would have costed businesses a lot of money by forcing them to clean up their acts. That and that alone is what the right wing has against Gore.

Like I said, US Representative Barney Frank was on the radio this morning, up late to do an interview that the Democrats intended to serve as an over-the-weekend warning to the White House. Not in decades have I heard a US politician be so forthright and clear, not holding back at all. Frank called Bush an incompetent before he laid out exactly how the Congress intended to force him to do as 77% of the US population wants him to do. Frank would not have claimed that the Republicans have agreed that Bush will have to go if he does not get out of Iraq if it weren't true. Frank, in case you do not know it, is one of those few office holders who are kept around because the public listens when he speaks. For Frank to call Bush an incompetent was so out of character that aides probably got Bush out of bed to listen to the rest of the interview. The US has always kept a handful of politicians whose decency was so manifest that even the opposition respects what they say when they speak. Frank is one of those. Frank may be the only openly homosexual member of Congress, but - even among Christian fundamentalists - that has put Frank in a position to be respected. Why? When he was first exposed as a homosexual, Frank had to make do w/o money from lobbyists. He had to keep his seat by virtue of the liking of his constituency. That made him clean - no matter what he did in his bedroom. Point is, Frank is put out whenever the left wants to make points that the right will have a hard time denying or even contradicting. One point that Frank made was, I think, important - that it is time for genuine conservatives to wake up to the fact that the Bush Administration does not represent them. The Bush Administration is all for small government when it comes to the things in which the government should be involved - and is all for big government when it comes to the things in which the government should not be involved. The Bush Administration wants to spy on citizens and control what the public sees and hears and does - but wants no restraints on big business, not even when it comes to dumping mercury in people's drinking water. The administration's record shows that this is quite true. One defeated scheme that the the Bush Administration hatched says it all - passports were to be privatized! Private businesses would be allowed to profit from issuing US passports! INSANITY.

I have felt bad for Tony Blair for years. Up until Iraq, I felt that he was doing a fairly decent job as prime minister. Yes - I agree. Blair probably did believe that he could deal w/Bush. After all, in the run up to the war, there were those visits to Crawford, and it was clear that Blair's intention was to dissuade Bush from going to war. What Blair did not realize was that he was dealing w/Dubya. When Dubya first got elected - and I'll never forget it - his college room-mate told journalists that America was going to find out just what it meant to have a president who is constitutionally incapable of compromise. Dubya does not understand "no" - will not take "no" as an answer, is so pig-headed that he will not change course, no matter what happens. NO MATTER WHAT. Dubya would have an aneurism from the effort it would take to get his mouth to form the words "I was wrong."

Blair was a lot like Clinton. A lot. Likable. Cute. Quick witted. Personable. And willing to do business w/anybody, no matter how high the stink rose. Blair is not what Dubya is - Blair is NOT stupid, so you can thak whatever God you believe in that the UK had at least that much in power, even if Blair did betray many of his youthful ideals - as did Clinton. (People are afraid that Hillary Clinton would do the same. There, I think, the public is wrong. Mrs Clinton can do business, yeah - but she always tacks to the left, even if she has to squeeze real hard) ... Blair and Clinton were extroverts, were go-getters, were "get it done" guys. Idealism is always beyond such people. Always.

[Wolf]

Clinton had just taken office and had not yet established his own policies as separate from those of his predecessor - who just happened to be Dubya's daddy and a "kinder, gentler" neocon.
Taken with your last statement (#5), you do realize how stupid you sound here, right? You can have it one way or the other, not both.

Democrats are no better for the world or public opinion among people that hate us than Republicans. It's just a fact of life that they hate us regardless of who our leaders are... The cause is a group effort by both sides, too. Don't expect to end it short of killing every last man, woman, and child that had anything to do with those events in the last 60+ years. Going on history alone, expect this fight to continue until our civilization falls, or ~400 years, whichever comes soonest.

Also: The rest of the US doesn't care what some stupid democrat representative from Massachusetts has to say. I never heard about this (or even his name) until you mentioned it in the last post. Sad, isn't it? I watch political closer than anyone else I know, too.

[Ferrus]

and is all for big government when it comes to the things in which the government should not be involved. The Bush Administration wants to spy on citizens and control what the public sees and hears and does - but wants no restraints on big business, not even when it comes to dumping mercury in people's drinking water.
In British Political Science there is a classic account of Thatcherism called 'The Free Economy and the Strong State' which notices these essential contradictions at the core of New Right ideology. It proclaims firstly that it wants to bring back 'traditional, Victorian values' - yet at the same time, through its justifying all sorts of corporate iniquity, through its expounding working to make money as opposed to looking after one's family or community, through its promotion of 'greed is good' it actually destoys the structures on which these very values were based on. The trade unions here are a mere rump of what they once were. The mining towns are desolate. There is no working class spirit, the working mens clubs are gentrified and there is more crime, mental illness, broken families and social disaffection than there ever was 30 years ago. So much for 'back to basics'.

And the second contradiction is what you say - they want to withdraw the state from that which genuinely matters for most people and transfer the money into the army (right wingers been warmongers, a cursory glance at history says as much) and the security forces. So they can cosh the people into fearful submission to their half-baked vision of the world. You said people are mainly self-interested. I feel that it is more nuanced - people have, as Dostoyesky explains in The Brothers Karazamov - a double side, a deeply selfish side and a side that, in the right circumstances, is altruistic. Most people hate freedom, ultimately, for freedom is confusing and dangerous. Like Hobbes said, they go to a big man, who will give them peace, bread and tell them what is right and wrong so they don't kill each other. New Right theory presents an oversimplification of human nature and economics and sells it to the public as a cureall. I think you are right - the corporate world is not the right despot to turn to. All the corporate world thinks of is the bottom line, all the corporate world is concerned with is material things. Maybe a despot, not perfect, but more contemplative and philosophical - an anti-utopian version of Plato's guardians - would be a better ruler.

But I fear the businesses will always rule. Why? The first tempatation of Christ - bread. They who control bread, or the various superfluous items we now seem to consider as vital as bread, always hold sway over mens minds more than others.

Thatcher only managed to stall the economy so that the state didn't grow, and stood still as a percentage of GDP, along with privatising coal, utilies and so on. From what I understand Reagan was significantly more severe.

The administration's record shows that this is quite true. One defeated scheme that the the Bush Administration hatched says it all - passports were to be privatized! Private businesses would be allowed to profit from issuing US passports! INSANITY.
In truth I have a hard time understanding how social security can be privatised as it is in the US.

Blair was a lot like Clinton. A lot. Likable. Cute. Quick witted. Personable.
The two got on very well, I think Blair's halycon days with Clinton, when everything was going his way in Northern Ireland and Kosovo - notice the Republicans, the supposed buttress against tyranny, refused to give Cliton the veto to attack the country so he had to use air strikes only - engendered a fatal overconfidence.

[omnirook]

Taken with your last statement (#5), you do realize how stupid you sound here, right? You can have it one way or the other, not both.

Democrats are no better for the world or public opinion among people that hate us than Republicans. It's just a fact of life that they hate us regardless of who our leaders are... The cause is a group effort by both sides, too. Don't expect to end it short of killing every last man, woman, and child that had anything to do with those events in the last 60+ years. Going on history alone, expect this fight to continue until our civilization falls, or ~400 years, whichever comes soonest.

Also: The rest of the US doesn't care what some stupid democrat representative from Massachusetts has to say. I never heard about this (or even his name) until you mentioned it in the last post. Sad, isn't it? I watch political closer than anyone else I know, too.

I think that you need to do some waking up. First, it is not "us" that people hate - it's our government and the big businesses that it represents that people hate. As Jaques Chirac pointed out, the world is aware that there is a difference between us and our government, a difference between other people and their governments that Americans seem not to see. At heart, the American people have remained what they have always been - basically decent w/a belief in fair play, and the American people would not approve of the behavior of their government if only they were aware of just what it is that their government does around the world. That other people can make the distinction is very important - and leaves us the hope that we can recover by simply holding our government accountable.

If you are unaware of who Barney Frank is, then you need to do some catching up. In case your civics teacher forgot to mention it, the US Government has 3 branches, and it isn't good enough to be aware of who the president is and nothing else. The barest minimum that a US citizen should know is as follows - (executive branch) president, vice president, secretary of state, national security head, chief of staff; (legislative branch) which party is presently in the majority in both houses (presently, it is the Democrats in both houses), leaders of both parties in both houses, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, party whips for both parties in both houses, the chairpersons of various committees in both houses, especially the committees that have to do w/spending, the military, and justice, and, of course, one's own senators and house representative; (judicial) the names of all Supreme Court justices and which president appointed each of them and which of them is the chief justice. That's the least that every American should know. The least. Being aware of voting records and who donated how much and when would also be good to know. And, by law, the information is available. If the Democratic Party recieved the maximum allowable donation from Big Business X w/a little note saying, "Because we like Senator Y," then you can bet your own bottom dollar that the Democratic Party and Senator Y will likely vote in favor Big Business X. But not necessarily. A flood of letters, emails, and phone calls from constituents WILL change the senator's mind. It has been proven time and again. They pay very close attention to their constituents - if their constituents bother. This little secret is worth knowing because it works at all levels, federal, state, and especially local - even w/officials who do not formally represent you. "Dear Senator Clinton, when I lived in New York, I voted for you. Though I now live in New Jersey, I still support you. Enclosed please find a check for $200 for your national campaign fund.
Senator, my business is still in New York, and most of my 348 employees live in New York. Their livlihoods are being affected by ..." She did respond. $200 is nothing - but 348 votes are not, especially when it's 348 working people who might wear campaign pins and put pro-Clinton bumper stickers on their cars. The 348 are likely married. Many of them will have children who are voting age. Apply simple math, and it adds up to a block of votes that can be had just by making a phone call - votes for both the NY Senate seat and for the White House. Politicians do respond to the public if the public bothers.

To be unaware of who Barney Frank is - is embarrassing, sorry. The Frank scandal was of epic proportions. Frank was elected to the US House of Representatives for Massachusetts. He was very popular in his constituency. Whether his constituents were aware that he was homosexual is unimportant; they voted for him, anyway. When he proved problematic for lobbyists, voting his conscience instead, the lobbyists decided that it was time to out Frank. It was assumed that he would resign - or at least lose his seat in the upcoming election. But the lobbyists were wrong. Frank might speak w/a bit of lisp, but he is not a pussy. The scandal erupted when it was put out in the papers (usual suspects, NY Post, etc) that Frank was a regular customer of a male prostitute. That should have destroyed Frank. But it didn't. Frank stood up in the House of Representatives and made a simple statement. What he did in his bedroom w/an adult (the prostitute was 30 years old) was nobody's business. That would not have saved him. What he said next did. "If I have to go down, I'll be taking many of you w/me. I will out every one of you who is in the closet - and, face it, some of you go w/male prostitutes who are not of age. I will provide a list of names. You all know who you are, both Democrats and Republicans." That was that. Frank was left alone. And he has been re-elected every 2 years since. Even the NY Post flatters him now and then.

[omnirook]

In British Political Science there is a classic account of Thatcherism called 'The Free Economy and the Strong State' which notices these essential contradictions at the core of New Right ideology. It proclaims firstly that it wants to bring back 'traditional, Victorian values' - yet at the same time, through its justifying all sorts of corporate iniquity, through its expounding working to make money as opposed to looking after one's family or community, through its promotion of 'greed is good' it actually destoys the structures on which these very values were based on. The trade unions here are a mere rump of what they once were. The mining towns are desolate. There is no working class spirit, the working mens clubs are gentrified and there is more crime, mental illness, broken families and social disaffection than there ever was 30 years ago. So much for 'back to basics'.

And the second contradiction is what you say - they want to withdraw the state from that which genuinely matters for most people and transfer the money into the army (right wingers been warmongers, a cursory glance at history says as much) and the security forces. So they can cosh the people into fearful submission to their half-baked vision of the world. You said people are mainly self-interested. I feel that it is more nuanced - people have, as Dostoyesky explains in The Brothers Karazamov - a double side, a deeply selfish side and a side that, in the right circumstances, is altruistic. Most people hate freedom, ultimately, for freedom is confusing and dangerous. Like Hobbes said, they go to a big man, who will give them peace, bread and tell them what is right and wrong so they don't kill each other. New Right theory presents an oversimplification of human nature and economics and sells it to the public as a cureall. I think you are right - the corporate world is not the right despot to turn to. All the corporate world thinks of is the bottom line, all the corporate world is concerned with is material things. Maybe a despot, not perfect, but more contemplative and philosophical - an anti-utopian version of Plato's guardians - would be a better ruler.

But I fear the businesses will always rule. Why? The first tempatation of Christ - bread. They who control bread, or the various superfluous items we now seem to consider as vital as bread, always hold sway over mens minds more than others.

Thatcher only managed to stall the economy so that the state didn't grow, and stood still as a percentage of GDP, along with privatising coal, utilies and so on. From what I understand Reagan was significantly more severe.

In truth I have a hard time understanding how social security can be privatised as it is in the US.

The two got on very well, I think Blair's halycon days with Clinton, when everything was going his way in Northern Ireland and Kosovo - notice the Republicans, the supposed buttress against tyranny, refused to give Cliton the veto to attack the country so he had to use air strikes only - engendered a fatal overconfidence.

The Republicans claim to be the "family values" party - yet their voting record shows that they are willing to grind families into dust to satisfy their campaign donators. Time and again, the Republicans have voted to do things that were anti-family. The Republicans have sold-out to the Religious Right, which is just another form of big business, the worst sort of big business, the type of big business that traffics in and profits from human misery - but, because Jesus is used as a trademark, the Republicans can pretend that they are pro-family when they vote to hand over billions in tax dollars to clerical swine who will squander the money faster and far less discriminately than any maker of bombs. The Pig's "faith-based initiatives" are unconstitutional, but they are tolerated because nobody dares to speak out against Jesus. And the Religious Right is so anti-family, so pro-destroying people to cripple them and thus make them dependent, that supporting them runs toward the monstrous. But there you are. The right-wing, as you say, appeals to the lower elements in human nature, the greed, the me-first mentality, the desire to wash one's hands of other people and their needs. There are some right-wing people who are decent - and that is a shame because those decent people are used to prop up what otherwise would not stand. How anybody who is poor could support the right wing is beyond me - until I realize that they have bought into the rhetoric w/o taking a closer look at the reality. That most of the poor who support the right wing are young and healthy and able to work goes a long way in explaining how they came to hold beliefs that are so far from their true interests as to amount to insanity.

[omnirook]

Ah, Nikolai just informed me that I was wrong - Frank is no longer the only openly gay member of Congress. There is also Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, an open lesbian. I should never have given Nikolai the right to read my posts! It's bad enough when one of you corrects me!

[Ferrus]

Ah, Nikolai just informed me that I was wrong - Frank is no longer the only openly gay member of Congress. There is also Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, an open lesbian. I should never have given Nikolai the right to read my posts! It's bad enough when one of you corrects me!
He's reading eh? I probably shouldn't mention Dostoyevsky for fear of making a gross error...

[apple]

I think that you need to do some waking up. First, it is not "us" that people hate - it's our government and the big businesses that it represents that people hate. As Jaques Chirac pointed out, the world is aware that there is a difference between us and our government, a difference between other people and their governments that Americans seem not to see. At heart, the American people have remained what they have always been - basically decent w/a belief in fair play, and the American people would not approve of the behavior of their government if only they were aware of just what it is that their government does around the world. That other people can make the distinction is very important - and leaves us the hope that we can recover by simply holding our government accountable.

If you are unaware of who Barney Frank is, then you need to do some catching up. In case your civics teacher forgot to mention it, the US Government has 3 branches, and it isn't good enough to be aware of who the president is and nothing else. The barest minimum that a US citizen should know is as follows - (executive branch) president, vice president, secretary of state, national security head, chief of staff; (legislative branch) which party is presently in the majority in both houses (presently, it is the Democrats in both houses), leaders of both parties in both houses, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, party whips for both parties in both houses, the chairpersons of various committees in both houses, especially the committees that have to do w/spending, the military, and justice, and, of course, one's own senators and house representative; (judicial) the names of all Supreme Court justices and which president appointed each of them and which of them is the chief justice. That's the least that every American should know. The least. Being aware of voting records and who donated how much and when would also be good to know. And, by law, the information is available. If the Democratic Party recieved the maximum allowable donation from Big Business X w/a little note saying, "Because we like Senator Y," then you can bet your own bottom dollar that the Democratic Party and Senator Y will likely vote in favor Big Business X. But not necessarily. A flood of letters, emails, and phone calls from constituents WILL change the senator's mind. It has been proven time and again. They pay very close attention to their constituents - if their constituents bother. This little secret is worth knowing because it works at all levels, federal, state, and especially local - even w/officials who do not formally represent you. "Dear Senator Clinton, when I lived in New York, I voted for you. Though I now live in New Jersey, I still support you. Enclosed please find a check for $200 for your national campaign fund.
Senator, my business is still in New York, and most of my 348 employees live in New York. Their livlihoods are being affected by ..." She did respond. $200 is nothing - but 348 votes are not, especially when it's 348 working people who might wear campaign pins and put pro-Clinton bumper stickers on their cars. The 348 are likely married. Many of them will have children who are voting age. Apply simple math, and it adds up to a block of votes that can be had just by making a phone call - votes for both the NY Senate seat and for the White House. Politicians do respond to the public if the public bothers.

To be unaware of who Barney Frank is - is embarrassing, sorry. The Frank scandal was of epic proportions. Frank was elected to the US House of Representatives for Massachusetts. He was very popular in his constituency. Whether his constituents were aware that he was homosexual is unimportant; they voted for him, anyway. When he proved problematic for lobbyists, voting his conscience instead, the lobbyists decided that it was time to out Frank. It was assumed that he would resign - or at least lose his seat in the upcoming election. But the lobbyists were wrong. Frank might speak w/a bit of lisp, but he is not a pussy. The scandal erupted when it was put out in the papers (usual suspects, NY Post, etc) that Frank was a regular customer of a male prostitute. That should have destroyed Frank. But it didn't. Frank stood up in the House of Representatives and made a simple statement. What he did in his bedroom w/an adult (the prostitute was 30 years old) was nobody's business. That would not have saved him. What he said next did. "If I have to go down, I'll be taking many of you w/me. I will out every one of you who is in the closet - and, face it, some of you go w/male prostitutes who are not of age. I will provide a list of names. You all know who you are, both Democrats and Republicans." That was that. Frank was left alone. And he has been re-elected every 2 years since. Even the NY Post flatters him now and then.

Yes, another reason why the private lives of politicians should be left alone in the media. It seems the only time when scandals arise is when neocons decide to take certain members out of power.

[Ferrus]

Yes, another reason why the private lives of politicians should be left alone in the media. It seems the only time when scandals arise is when neocons decide to take certain members out of power.
But in the age of celebrity the prurient tales of politicians' lives are all that sell papers to readers with sensibilities untrained to any political matter of substance beyond intellectually anaemic platitudes.

[apple]

But in the age of celebrity the prurient tales of politicians' lives are all that sell papers to readers will sensibilities untrained to any political matter of substance beyond intellectually anaemic platitudes.

Aside from the US and UK's hunger for tabloid journalism, I think the private lives of politicians should not be used against them for purposes of discrediting them. After all, people in the rest of the world seem to understand this concept.

[omnirook]

He's reading eh? I probably shouldn't mention Dostoyevsky for fear of making a gross error...

Well, unless you can read Dostoyevski in the original, I suppose that he would put down any errors that you made to bad translations - and they're all bad, according to Nikolai. The best-selling translations, the Penguin editions, are his particular target for complaint. Apparently the underlying, deep sorrow, the idiomatic regret that saturated Dostoyevski's prose is lost - as is the high-altitude majesty of Tolstoy's prose. He won't bother w/the poets, so he's not railed about Puskin being hacked up by mediocre translators ... I asked him whether Russians did any better in translating English to Russian. Surprisingly, he said "No." They translate German fairly well and French especially well, but English not so well. I asked if the government allowed such translations, and he said that the government did not, so one had to go to the black market for them. Of course, the government took its cut of the black market profits! Nowadays, of course, regular translations are available - if one can afford them, that is.


But in the age of celebrity the prurient tales of politicians' lives are all that sell papers to readers will sensibilities untrained to any political matter of substance beyond intellectually anaemic platitudes.

Can you imagine what they would have done w/Kennedy?!


Aside from the US and UK's hunger for tabloid journalism, I think the private lives of politicians should not be used against them for purposes of discrediting them. After all, people in the rest of the world seem to understand this concept.

Yeah, well, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was joke fodder the world round. Nobody elsewhere could believe that anybody here cared.

[apple]

Well, unless you can read Dostoyevski in the original, I suppose that he would put down any errors that you made to bad translations - and they're all bad, according to Nikolai. The best-selling translations, the Penguin editions, are his particular target for complaint. Apparently the underlying, deep sorrow, the idiomatic regret that saturated Dostoyevski's prose is lost - as is the high-altitude majesty of Tolstoy's prose. He won't bother w/the poets, so he's not railed about Puskin being hacked up by mediocre translators ... I asked him whether Russians did any better in translating English to Russian. Surprisingly, he said "No." They translate German fairly well and French especially well, but English not so well. I asked if the government allowed such translations, and he said that the government did not, so one had to go to the black market for them. Of course, the government took its cut of the black market profits! Nowadays, of course, regular translations are available - if one can afford them, that is.

Omirook! where do you come up with this wealth of knowledge? :lol: It's like you can read everyone's minds and attain the best information

[apple]

Yeah, well, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was joke fodder the world round. Nobody elsewhere could believe that anybody here cared.

Exactly. I was travelling around Europe and Asia when the scandal broke out, and people were telling me what a great American President Clinton was and couldn't believe people (we Americans) cared about this shit.

[Ferrus]

Well, unless you can read Dostoyevski in the original, I suppose that he would put down any errors that you made to bad translations - and they're all bad, according to Nikolai. The best-selling translations, the Penguin editions, are his particular target for complaint. Apparently the underlying, deep sorrow, the idiomatic regret that saturated Dostoyevski's prose is lost - as is the high-altitude majesty of Tolstoy's prose. He won't bother w/the poets, so he's not railed about Puskin being hacked up by mediocre translators ... I asked him whether Russians did any better in translating English to Russian. Surprisingly, he said "No." They translate German fairly well and French especially well, but English not so well. I asked if the government allowed such translations, and he said that the government did not, so one had to go to the black market for them. Of course, the government took its cut of the black market profits! Nowadays, of course, regular translations are available - if one can afford them, that is.
Interesting, I'm reading Constance Garnett's translation which is often criticised. She used many Victorianisms as were common in the Edwardian era, which perhaps attenuate the force of the prose, and some have suggested she sanitised it for the more puritanical Anglo-American readers. But I have a cheap Wordsworth edition, so they use older translations where the copyright has expired in order to save money. Still, reading books written 100 years ago helps expand one's active vocabulary. And this notwithstanding, the philosophical content remains intact. It is interesting broadening my knowledge of the Orthodox church, given the number of Greeks I know.

What's his opinon on the Chekov and Gogal translations? I rather enjoyed Dead Souls.

Ah Puskin - he shall always be remembered as the foot fetishers poet.

By the way, do you have a samovar? I ask because Tolstoy was always mentioning Tula as the samovar capital of Russia.

Can you imagine what they would have done w/Kennedy?!
Crucified. But then so would Roosevelt (presuming he could ever become President with his illness in our image obsessed era), what with his spiritualist pretensions and other such dubious matters. Even Churchill would be rated against by the press as an alcoholic (he drunk a quart of whisky every day) and be forced out of office just as a Liberal leader here (Charles Kennedy) recently had to relinquish the leadership of his party because he had a drinking problem.

[omnirook]

Interesting, I'm reading Constance Garnett's translation which is often criticised. She used many Victorianisms as were common in the Edwardian era, which perhaps attenuate the force of the prose, and some have suggested she sanitised it for the more puritanical Anglo-American readers. But I have a cheap Wordsworth edition, so they use older translations where the copyright has expired in order to save money. Still, reading books written 100 years ago helps expand one's active vocabulary. And this notwithstanding, the philosophical content remains intact. It is interesting broadening my knowledge of the Orthodox church, given the number of Greeks I know.

What's his opinon on the Chekov and Gogal translations? I rather enjoyed Dead Souls.

Ah Puskin - he shall always be remembered as the foot fetishers poet.

By the way, do you have a samovar? I ask because Tolstoy was always mentioning Tula as the samovar capital of Russia.

Crucified. But then so would Roosevelt (presuming he could ever become President with his illness in our image obsessed era), what with his spiritualist pretensions and other such dubious matters. Even Churchill would be rated against by the press as an alcoholic (he drunk a quart of whisky every day) and be forced out of office just as a Liberal leader here (Charles Kennedy) recently had to relinquish the leadership of his party because he had a drinking problem.

I'll ask him about Chekov and Gogol this evening. I suspect that his opinion is the same, though Gogol, I think, was probably easier to translate, but I could be wrong.

We have 2 samovars, one that burns coal (back yard) and one that is electric (for in the house). I'm not especially fond of tea, but a samovar does make particularly good tea. Then there's a drink, a mix of water and honey and other spices that is heated up. S'bitten is the closest that I can come to a transliteration. It's good manners for a Russian to serve tea and small cakes, unless, of course, it is meal time. Russians are fond of good, peasant-type food, hearty cabbage soups and, of course, borscht, a beet soup, but also of bean soups and meat stews. I have grown so used to cabbage that it no longer gives me gas. It's a constant in our diet, whether it is cooked or raw. It makes a very good salad - and that's apparently another Russian love, salads of all kinds, made up from fresh greens and vegetables and left-over cold meat or fish and hard-boiled eggs and even pickled eggs. Pickled. Good God, what don't they pickle! Because Nikolai grew up in St Petersburg, he's a fish eater - fish and more fish and fish stuffed w/fish, fish on top of and underneath fish - just fish, fish, fish, breakfast, lunch, dinner, w/fish eggs for snacks. Twice a week, it's a trip to Brighton Beach to buy the "right kind" of black bread for making "proper toast" for the fish eggs. There hasn't been a piece of white bread in this house for years. Of course, if guests are over, that is an excuse to guzzle vodka w/the meal. I took a fit about that years ago, and he promised me that he would control it. And he has. I'm grateful for that. He drinks only if we have company - which isn't often - or if we go out, which isn't often. And he touches no other form of alcohol, not even beer. So many Slavs are boozers that it's a miracle to find one who is not plastered every evening before going to bed.

[Ferrus]

Are there any Russian beers? I remember reading that they have this vaguely alcoholic beverage which is similar to beer (I think it is called kvas) and which is even drunk by monks and children.

I've never actually had samovar tea before, is it in any way similar to chinese tea (which I have had)?

As for the Slavs being boozers... I hear the Russian people were quite happy to oblige Stalin in his purges but when he threatened to reduce their supplies of Vodka in order to increase productivity there was a great deal of murmuring...

[apple]

Can you imagine what they would've done with Kennedy?!

Crucified. But then so would Roosevelt (presuming he could ever become President with his illness in our image obsessed era).

Yes, Ferrus, but Kennedy was crucified

[apple]

I think you're dipping into the realm of the conspiracy theory. History might prove out that 9/11 wasn't Osama's doing, but that's how it looked 7 years ago, and the previous administration would have been in their rights to arrest him, freeze his assets, impede him in some way based on things that have come to light since. Would doing that have stopped 9/11? I don't think we'll ever know. Hard to prove how something would not have happened.

The only conspiracy I adhere to is the one in which all the relevant and important information regarding these events are kept Classified from public knowledge, even if the US Supreme Court subpoenas this information.


Which has the greater circulation: Congressional Record or People?
Which has more viewership: CSPAN or Entertainment Tonight?

I think People/ET are agencies that cater to a certain target demographic- and it's really irrelevant to compare oranges and apples. The New York Times has a high circulation as the Chicago Tribune.


Why does the Goddamned Fox Network jump on a story about a missing hot blonde co-ed and beat it to death? Because none of their advertisers want to pitch to those interested in such things?

Because it's cheap, easy, effortless programming. To actually report on the news around the world would take more resources and employees.


Are all these things the result of some evil genius within the vast right-wing conspiracy? Or is it more likely that we humans just like to hear naughty stories and salacious gossip about people's private lives, and will pay attention to whomever indulges this natural curiousity? If it's the latter, then I guess public figures probably shouldn't put themselves into a position where it can be proven that they came all over their interns and stuck cigars in naughty places--because once it's out in the open, nothing else will matter to most people. Make sense?

It's not such a conspiracy as it is a fact that the US media purposely misrepresents and ignores a majority of information that could be disseminated to the public.


It's called discretion. Clinton didn't master it. Thus, he'll be remembered as that guy with a bitchy wife who liked to get hummers from fat chix who looked like Ruth Buzzi while radical Islam surged and the world started burning. This is the personal price he paid.

Unfortunately it was used against him- but he wasn't the first President to have undergone scandal of that sort. President Jefferson was ridiculed in the media for having an African-American slave mistress, but he isn't remembered for that.


Agreed. We're in a bad spot and it looks like it's going to get worse.

Do you think pulling out of Iraq would be too much of a dent in the ego then? What do you suppose the solution to be?

[Ferrus]

Yes, Ferrus, but Kennedy was crucified
But there was nevertheless a certain distance that the press took then. Notice - tales of his lurid private life has largely become popular in the last 15 years.

[Hermione]

I'm sure the Democrats would've done just fine as they always do, even very much above average on some issues, and far less damage than good.

At the very least , they wouldn't have "run the entire bus into a ditch, sent the injured out to look for help, and then set the whole thing on fire to cover the evidence, just in case there might be something salvagable in the wreckage" of what used to be a very decent country to live in anyway.

Oh, yeah, but they prolly wouldn't have been so smart and savvy as to blame their train wreck of a foreign policy on 'the foreigners' over there and the primordial 'axis of evil' -- which btw, just insures we are now truly evil. [never point the finger.. any grade school kid knows this]

we are making enemies faster than we can kill them ,,,

Democrats would've worked on domestic policies for a while at least to make it look good . And would've prolly actually cured some of our ills just to assuage voters. I'm for that. Couldn't care less about the rationale, just do some damned good like I've been paying you to do for years; oh, and many generations of my family have been paying for your free meals and plane trips also.

[apple]

But there was nevertheless a certain distance that the press took then. Notice - tales of his lurid private life has largely become popular in the last 15 years.

I think it was only because the death of Kennedy probably marked the end of an era in which the private corruptions of politicans were kept behind closed doors. Now since sensationalism has taken center stage, it's perfectly acceptable to comment on the events in which have no impact anymore.

[omnirook]

Are there any Russian beers? I remember reading that they have this vaguely alcoholic beverage which is similar to beer (I think it is called kvas) and which is even drunk by monks and children.

I've never actually had samovar tea before, is it in any way similar to chinese tea (which I have had)?

As for the Slavs being boozers... I hear the Russian people were quite happy to oblige Stalin in his purges but when he threatened to reduce their supplies of Vodka in order to increase productivity there was a great deal of murmuring...

Kvass is - watered down beer. Sort of. It's very weak, and it's quite refreshing, but liking it is an "acquired taste." Nikolai does not drink kvass - or the Polish and German beers that are popular w/Russians. When I met him, he drank vodka, beer, and - gin. And he drank a lot. Too much. Then I put my foot down. Either the alcohol went or I did. The compromise was that he would drink only if we went out or if we had company or were company. And then he couldn't get drunk. He's kept that promise for above 20 years, so I don't mind his having his vodka now and then ... Yes, vodka is VERY important to Russians. For centuries, it's been NORMAL for men to be at least a little drunk all day, every day. Russian women are a marvel! For centuries, they've not had to get pregnant to have a baby on their hands; all they have had to do has been to get married. One sociologist - I forget who at the moment - said that the motiff for a Russian marriage was for a wife to put up w/a drunken husband, requiring of him only that he go to work. All else fell to her. And her reward was usually a sound beating. Then, realizing what he had done, the husband would blubber like a baby, and the wife would use one hand to hold ice to her own black eye and the other hand to comfort her sobbing husband, whom she forgave - again and again and again ... I've met a lot of Russians, men and women. The men are far more sentimental - and unrealisitic - and prone to idealism that is tinged w/bitterness. The women have amazed me w/their will power, w/their determination, w/their ability to cope w/anything. And I mean anything.

Naturally, I find Slavic people attractive, especially when, like Nikolai, they are black-haired and blue-eyed w/creamy white complexions. Not all Slavs have these features, of course, most are brown-haired, but nearly all have blue eyes, though hazel eyes are not uncommon. Poles tend to be darker complected, but they are also an attractive people. I think, anyway. Nikolai has the high cheekbones and sharp nose and little bow of a mouth of his class - I am certain that the first expression which he mastered as a baby was contempt. Whether the attributes of aristocrats came before or after their exalted status, whether those attributes contributed to or resulted from their gaining an exalted status is open to (endless) debate - but they do look different from peasants, can be spotted quite easily in a crowd. They are more delicate looking and seem to have an innate grace of bearing. Even when Nikolai first arrived in America and had nothing except for the clothes on his back and a change of underwear in his coat pocket, he looked like he owned the place. As small as he is, he commands respect, especially from strangers. I have never been able to figure out how much of this is owing to his ancestry and how much of it is owing to the simple fact that he is a deadly dangerous man and that people sense the danger. That much - his ability to use violence when violence is called for - has to be inborn. Nobody could learn what I have seen time and again. Faster than an adversary can blink, he is disabled. It's lightening - really, it is - and very cat-like. Even the largest, strongest man has vulnerable points, and these are struck far faster than the large, strong man can use his size.

Well, it depends on what you mean by Chinese tea. I rather like the tea that is served in Chinese restaurants. (I don't care for that Indian muck that's slopped up w/butter!) Samovar tea is very, very strong. It's often made from a tea resin, a highly concentrated form of tea that comes in little cakes that are popped into the samovar's top. It's not bitter, though, the way that others teas are when you when you steep them too long. It's just very strong.

I've not had a chance to speak to Nikolai about Chekov and Gogol. Long day, and he was asleep on the couch when I got home. I went to bed, and he followed. Now I'm going back to bed after I finish this coffee - which I much prefer to tea.

[mtene]

The snobbery in this thread is amazing.

[Ferrus]

Interesting that you speak of an aristocracy with different facial features. I remember reading a report on the Japanese aristocracy who have noticably more angular faces than most Japanese, and it has been genetically proven that this is the result of outside influence - specifically in this case the Ainu - perhaps a similar thing occurred with the Russian aristocracy?

You say that you know a lot of Russians... are many of them bitter about losing the USSR and the way in which peoples such as the Georgians, the Armenians and the central Asian nations decided to desert them?

[omnirook]

Interesting that you speak of an aristocracy with different facial features. I remember reading a report on the Japanese aristocracy who have noticably more angular faces than most Japanese, and it has been genetically proven that this is the result of outside influence - specifically in this case the Ainu - perhaps a similar thing occurred with the Russian aristocracy?

You say that you know a lot of Russians... are many of them bitter about losing the USSR and the way in which peoples such as the Georgians, the Armenians and the central Asian nations decided to desert them?

The Russians that I know fall into 2 broad classes - former aristocrats like Nikolai and his family and friends - and former Soviets. The former aristocrats are indifferent to the collapse of the Soviet Union - at least until such a time as the tsar is restored (to his God-given and rightful place).

(The Romanov Family Association is officially neutral on this matter, maintaining that the Imperial Family wants what is best for the Russian people, maintaining that it is up to the Russian people to decide whether they want the tsar back. They feel that there is no other position to take. However, given that the association pays close attention to marriage, birth, death, precedence, and "titular rights," one cannot help but conclude that this conciliatory face covers over a belief that they have been shoved out of their rightful places and that they need to be ready for when the day comes.)

... Russians, whether aristocrats or peasants, but especially the aristocrats, are like the French in that they believe that their culture is superior and that it is their duty to educate the world. Russia is itself a she, a vast, loving but severe mother, and it is Russia that is the heroine of the epic story, not any one person, not even the tsar - or, in this case, the tsaritsa. The Russians take a very colonial attitude toward the peoples who surround them - a very colonial attitude. If those people are temporarily disobedient and have run amuk like children when mother is away, then they will find out that they need mother and will repent of their bad behavior when the time comes. They cannot escape Mother.

The Soviets that I have come to know are indeed bitter. Particularly the ex-KGB who fill up Brighton Beech. "So stupid, the whole thing, so stupid. That pig-bastard Gorbachev should rot in Hell, he and Reagan should share the same pit and should spend all eternity taking turns fucking each other in the ass. And it was all to please a handful of greedy Jews who have since become billionaires by starving the Russian people, by bleeding them dry - it was Jews who killed the tsar, and Stalin knew what he was doing when he sent them to Siberia!" - this before stepping into a shop owned by a Jew and being polite while buying imported delicacies ... It's amazing. Get a Slav of any brand going about the Jews, and the story is the same. Our Polish housekeeper is a sweet, little old granny who dotes on her work - you see her lovingly doing her work! - but mention Jews, and she is transformed. "They cause all the trouble. All of it - it is them who are behind everything bad ... Not all of them are bad, you understand. The poor ones, the simple ones, the ones who work - they suffer w/the rest of us, God protect them. But the rich ones! Look - look at the monsters in the world. Look at the landlords who threw so many millions onto the streets in Russia just before winter came - Jews!" Conflating the rich w/Jews is the problem. Yes - some of the richest people in the world are Jews - BUT ... Some of the most effective social activists for human rights, for worker rights, for civil rights are JEWS. Why it becomes a Satanic plot for a handful of rich Jews to behave like the rest of the world's rich escapes me. But there you have it - and all Jews are forced to pay the bill for the handful of Jews who are rich and who behave like other rich people ... Anyway, yeah - bitterness, mostly directed at "traitors" in high places, not at America, which acted only as an adversary could be expected to act.

[Ferrus]

That's very interesting. It is a forgotten fact of history that the Polish government in the 30's was every bit as anti-semetic as the Nazis, and many Poles helped send the Jews to the camps with alacrity.

As for the surrounding peoples and the colonial attitude... since the expansion of the EU there are a lot of people from the Baltic working here. I mean the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians. They all seem to share this attitude that the Russians are arrogant and hate them with a passion (as I notice do many Poles and Finns), they feel that they were screwed over by the Allies in WW2 (and thus subjugated by the USSR). Did you hear of the WW2 memorial? The Estonian government knocked down a memorial to Soviet troops, to the horror of the Russian immigrants (moved in since 1945) and to the glee of most Estonians. The Russian government responded by trying to knock down the Estonian web system.

Something else which has also intrigued me... ever since the World Wars there has been, at least amongst the older generation, a sense of bitterness towards the Germans, especially in Britain, Poland and France (indeed even in Northern Italy because of the German scorched earth policy), yet the largest number of deaths in both wars were Russians. Surely such cataclymic death and destruction must have had an effect on the psychology of many people... but is there much anti-German feeling?

[omnirook]

That's very interesting. It is a forgotten fact of history that the Polish government in the 30's was every bit as anti-semetic as the Nazis, and many Poles helped send the Jews to the camps with alacrity.

As for the surrounding peoples and the colonial attitude... since the expansion of the EU there are a lot of people from the Baltic working here. I mean the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians. They all seem to share this attitude that the Russians are arrogant and hate them with a passion (as I notice do many Poles and Finns), they feel that they were screwed over by the Allies in WW2 (and thus subjugated by the USSR). Did you hear of the WW2 memorial? The Estonian government knocked down a memorial to Soviet troops, to the horror of the Russian immigrants (moved in since 1945) and to the glee of most Estonians. The Russian government responded by trying to knock down the Estonian web system.

Something else which has also intrigued me... ever since the World Wars there has been, at least amongst the older generation, a sense of bitterness towards the Germans, especially in Britain, Poland and France (indeed even in Northern Italy because of the German scorched earth policy), yet the largest number of deaths in both wars were Russians. Surely such cataclymic death and destruction must have had an effect on the psychology of many people... but is there much anti-German feeling?

I don't know if I would call the Russian attitude to the other Soviets hate - but it is condescension, which, I am sure, feels like hate ... It's a tangle, really. For the better part of a thousand years, Russia, much like the UK, was divided into 3 classes - the sovereign, who formed a singularity, the nobles (peers), and the peasants (commons).

Russians were always very particular about distinctions between the owner of a title and his relatives, who got to use the title w/o possessing the right to sit in the Duma. (Substantive title vs courtesy title). And then, as more and more territory got added to the empire, the distinctions between the nobles became ever more refined. Always, a Russian was "better," especially if he was boyar - meaning a descendant of the Russian nobility of Muscovy, the pre-Russia, pre-tsar state that centered on Moscow.

The rulers of the states that got absorbed into Russia were given the title kynaz, which is very roughly translated as "prince" - but not a prince of the blood (tsarevich). It's more like a "Serene Highness" in some of the European nobilities.

Then Peter the Great went European and created a whole new set of distinctions, importing titles such as duke, count, viscount, and baron. These were court titles and belonged sometimes to "new men," to elevated peasants who had earned the tsar's gratitude. The holders of these titles had power, real power, because they were close to the tsar, could see him, speak to him - persuade him. These court "nobodies" were generally despised by the "real boyar" - the true nobles of noble blood.

Make no mistake, the tsar's power was truly absolute. That was why government ministers worked very hard to control what the tsar saw and heard. The tsar lived in a world apart, surrounded by men who were terrified of 2 things: 1) that the tsar should know something that they did not want him to know, and 2) that the tsar, upon finding out what had been hidden from him, would take revenge - revenge against which there was NO appeal. There literally was NO restraint upon the tsar's power if he decided to act - so the whole thing boiled down to keeping him quiescent and - inert. The punishments meted out to even the highest born noble were savage! Peter the Great had his own sister's nose and ears cut off before she was knouted; then what was left of her was sent to a nunnery, where she was locked in a room and given only water and bread.

Knouting was w/o doubt the most horrible form of whipping ever invented. The knout was such a terrible whip that only highly trained "knout masters" were permitted to wield it. A skillful knout master could kill a strong, healthy man w/20 blows, cutting him to pieces, causing him to bleed to death. Point is, this was the usual punishment for those who had displeased the tsar. A skillful knout master could cut off a man's ears, blind him, and leave him a helpless cripple w/a few flicks of his wrist.

Now - all of that was background. At the pinnacle was the tsar, then came his family (sons, brothers, nephews, unlces, cousins, in that order w/the crown prince having his own special place, just below the tsar and just above everybody else; the tsar's wife and his mother and his sisters and his daughters were - until the reign of Peter the Great - kept isolated in a harem, never setting foot outside, never meeting or seeing anybody, particularly any male person. After Peter the Great, this loosened up; the women were not kept locked away, but they did not count - not until Peter decided that his wife would succeed him. Then, over night, women had power and would keep the power until the Soviet era ...

After the Imperial Family, came the boyars and then the royalty and nobility of non-Muscovite ancestry, then the gentry, then the soldiers, then the merchants, then the serfs. Here is the answer to your question: a Russian serf was "better" than an Estonian serf! He was Russian! W/the exception of the despised inner circle of "new men" who served as the tsar's ministers, blood was everything - everything.

Then the Revolution happened, the nobility was discredited, everybody was "equal" - but, as w/the farm in Animal Farm, some were more equal than others - and this was especially so for the Russians. Stalin, who was not Russian, apparently believed this - hence his Russification programs and his forced migrations of Russian "seed stock" into the other Soviet republics. Bill's wife, Irene, was the granddaughter of Russians who had been forced to move to Estonia. The Estonians hated her and would not accept her after Estonia broke away from the Soviet Union - and Russia would not accept her because she was "Estonian" - which was why she did what she had to do to get to America! She had suffered that, and Nikolai had suffered because his ancestors were boyar, and, worse, his full name included a string of German and Swedish titles and towns. The Russians DESPISE the Germans - and the Swedish. The Empress Elizabeth is revered because she hated Germans and kicked the Germans out of her court and forbade the court to continue using German, which had all but replaced Russian among the boyar. Many in the imperial household didn't even speak Russian - the empress herself needed lessons! - but she made Russian the official language, even if she couldn't stop her descendants from greedily marrying German princes and princesses. The "German-ness" of the aristocracy and the Imperial Family was held against them. That the last tsar and his wife conversed in German was used against them. The last tsartisa had an accent - and that made her hated. Nikolai has combed his family tree to the point that he can tell you that he is above 90 % Russian, that his German and Swedish ancestors were so far back that they have been "washed out" of his genes (not true, of course, but he will not accept that he is anything less than a true Russian).

So, yes, until recently, the Russians HATED the Germans. I can't say that they are thrilled w/them even now. Too many Russians either lived through the war - or else grew up being fed stories of the war.

[Ferrus]

Very interesting indeed - the common image that Western propoganda has painted of the USSR was that the bureaucrats formed an elite of their own with all the best luxury, is this what you mean by some being more equal than others?

[omnirook]

Very interesting indeed - the common image that Western propoganda has painted of the USSR was that the bureaucrats formed an elite of their own with all the best luxury, is this what you mean by some being more equal than others?

Exactly. The "luxury" that they enjoyed was not, however, of a quality that would appeal to westerners. Yes, it included more regular supplies of finer foods, etc, but it's most coveted feature was access to information. As one became more important, one got access to information that had been less processed and regularized, though bald facts tended to be found only where it was essential for them to be found. Even the KGB was set up this way, w/outer and inner agents.

To Russians, the most important luxuries are food and drink and warmth and music. The tsars built impressive buildings for foreign consumption but still lived fairly modest lives when they were not in state. A feature that received considerable attention by foreigners was the simplicity that characterized the Imperial Family's life out of the spotlight. "Peasant" food was preferred if there were no foreigners to impress. Embassy reports of seeing the tsar sitting down on an up-turned box, surrounded by his favorite peasants, eating pickled herring w/his fingers, while he joked and laughed w/his peasants abound. The tsarevich might be spotted frolicking w/the children of his servants, who thought nothing of calling the boy by his given name - and beating him in this or that game. These small details give insights into a very complex picture. Nobles whose position is unquestioned, whose position cannot be challenged have no need for hautier. The tsarevich was the tsarevich, and losing a race or not jumping as high or not being able to climb to the highest branch in a tree would not change this. Many times, the tsarevich would deliberately lose the games, so that his friends would be happy.

Western style luxury was not really to be found, not until the Soviet Union was in its final throes. Saying that the Soviet elites lived in splendor while everybody else did w/o is an - exaggeration. Education and books and music and chess and the chance to see performances of the orchestras and ballets were coveted - and, yes, largely the prize of the elite. BUT, from the tsars forward, providing food and shelter to the masses was a priority. The tsars were remarkably well informed about crops and rain fall and animal husbandry. These details were fed to the tsars constantly. The picture of Peter the Great's father that has come down to us is of a man who spent his days in church, attending mass all day, every day, while his ministers sidled up to him to whisper the latest grain reports in his ear. Should we buy from the Germans? Flooding? What is being done? Are my people being fed? Move grain from here to there. Etc. The patriarch would conduct the mass to the rythym of the tsar's ability to return his attention to the service.

Yes, there were abuses - and nobody was more abused than the serfs - but, really, taken over time and considering that the abuses were rare compared to the benefits, the picture of Imperial Russia must be modified to reflect the fact that the people loved the tsar and looked up to him as their father. There was no homeless-ness, there was starvation in only in times of the worst famine. And nobles who were abusive towards their serfs were usually punished if the tsar found out about it - the question was if.

[Ferrus]

Yes, there were abuses - and nobody was more abused than the serfs - but, really, taken over time and considering that the abuses were rare compared to the benefits, the picture of Imperial Russia must be modified to reflect the fact that the people loved the tsar and looked up to him as their father. There was no homeless-ness, there was starvation in only in times of the worst famine. And nobles who were abusive towards their serfs were usually punished if the tsar found out about it - the question was if.
Yes... however one cannot deny that something snapped in the revolution. I suppose ultimately it was WW1. She sheer scale of it, and the fact that so many young Russians were being mowed down with machine guns.

However, when I look at the evidence I would say that by 1914 there was a distinct split in Russian society. After the Crimean war, and the emancipation of the serfs industrialisation began slowly but surely. The urban proletariats didn't have the same social security and heirarchy as the peasants. They were dirt poor too and worked in horrific conditions, even by the standards of the serfs. The peasants were loyal to the Tsar and the old regime - this is why both Lenin and Stalin focused their purges on this class (c.f. the history of the Kulaks and collectivisation). Hence war communism and Lenin's decision to send security agents in to pacify the country. Marxism, except in its Maoist guise, has always deprecated the rustics to the glorification of urbanisation. Thus... it is interesting to see in 1905 that the abortive revolution which forced the Tsar's hand game largely in St. Petersburg, and as a result of urban dissatisfaction with the defeat at the hand of the Japanese (I wonder if anyone in Russia is still bitter about that). The Soviets in 1917 drew their power from bases such as Moscow, St. Petersburg and other big cities, whilst the countryside remained quiescent.

The Catholic Church still treats the Russian Orthodox Church with disdain for their supposed 'treason' in allying with the Soviet state, especially when Stalin used it as a tool with which to rally the people in WW2, and their eventually low-key role after the war. I wonder why successive Popes have taken this attitude, did they really have any other choice?

Have you ever seen the film the Last Emperor? In a way I imagine the collapse of the Russian monarchy as rather similar to the collapse of the Chinese imperial throne, and the life of Pu Yi has parallels with Nicholas.

[omnirook]

Yes... however one cannot deny that something snapped in the revolution. I suppose ultimately it was WW1. She sheer scale of it, and the fact that so many young Russians were being mowed down with machine guns.

However, when I look at the evidence I would say that by 1914 there was a distinct split in Russian society. After the Crimean war, and the emancipation of the serfs industrialisation began slowly but surely. The urban proletariats didn't have the same social security and heirarchy as the peasants. They were dirt poor too and worked in horrific conditions, even by the standards of the serfs. The peasants were loyal to the Tsar and the old regime - this is why both Lenin and Stalin focused their purges on this class (c.f. the history of the Kulaks and collectivisation). Hence war communism and Lenin's decision to send security agents in to pacify the country. Marxism, except in its Maoist guise, has always deprecated the rustics to the glorification of urbanisation. Thus... it is interesting to see in 1905 that the abortive revolution which forced the Tsar's hand game largely in St. Petersburg, and as a result of urban dissatisfaction with the defeat at the hand of the Japanese (I wonder if anyone in Russia is still bitter about that). The Soviets in 1917 drew their power from bases such as Moscow, St. Petersburg and other big cities, whilst the countryside remained quiescent.

The Catholic Church still treats the Russian Orthodox Church with disdain for their supposed 'treason' in allying with the Soviet state, especially when Stalin used it as a tool with which to rally the people in WW2, and their eventually low-key role after the war. I wonder why successive Popes have taken this attitude, did they really have any other choice?

Have you ever seen the film the Last Emperor? In a way I imagine the collapse of the Russian monarchy as rather similar to the collapse of the Chinese imperial throne, and the life of Pu Yi has parallels with Nicholas.

Yes - several times. It was a great movie, if very inaccurate historically. (Pu Yi's homosexuality was ignored.) ... That's not a bad analogy. The tsar was isolated, did live a very rarefied life. The Imperial Family were very religious, very observant, and the tsar was dependent upon his officials for information - and they tended to tell the tsar whatever would get him to favor their own policies - or else aid them in their own corruptions. This is what has always tended to happen to absolute autocrats - they become isolated, cut off, completely dependent upon their ministers. One story is about the Grand Duke Alexei. He was out for a ride in the fresh air. His carriage passed a group of boys, and one of them was standing, shivering in the cold. He had no coat or hat or gloves. Alexei ordered his carriage to stop, and he got down, and he took off his hat and coat and gloves and gave them to the boy. Rather than risk have that happen again, the tsar's ministers forced the crown prince's doctors to tell the tsaritsa that it was not good for the boy to go riding in the open air. But that wasn't the end of it. Alexei did not forget what had happened, and he told his father about it, and his father was astonished that one of his people did not have a coat. The tsar wanted to know how this could be. That the tsar was unaware of the poverty of the working class w/in his own capital paints a picture - and makes having killed the Imperial Family all the more monstrous - especially since Nikolai II made serious attempts at reform in the years before he was forced to abdicate - and, yes, over World War I. Nikolai was not a hard man; he was not cruel, did not sentence people to the knout, was generous whenever he was presented w/problems that he could address by simply saying "Feed them." Or "Build houses for them." Nikolai's letters to his cousins, George V and William II, show that he was deeply concerned about the welfare of his people, but he was not hard enough to force the necessary changes. Peter the Great and Stalin - 2 peas in a pod! Quick, brutal cruelty if there was the slightest delay in obeying an order. Nikolai might have saved his throne if he had put a few heads on spikes along the walls of the palace compound!

The Russian Orthodox Church has always been Greek in its behavior - ie, like the Greek Orthodox Church of which it was a child, the ROC has always been another branch of the government. Always. That, of course, led the Roman Catholic Church to look down on the Greek communions - but, then, the RCC was a state in its own right. The ROC does not care. Russian Orthodox people are singularly secure in their righteousness and do not need the approval of Rome.

Putin has acted like a tsar - that is why he is popular. It is very hard for westerners, especially Americans, to understand, but the Russians are NOT democratically minded. Recently, Stalin has been been enjoying a renaissance in the public mind. "There was a man who knew how to rule!" That the Imperial Family have been welcomed home - albeit for short visits - and that the state gave the murdered Imperial Family a state funeral - and that Imperial Family have been made saints are taken as good signs by the Romanov Family Association. A few feet from where I am sitting, an icon of the Imperial Family hangs w/a little candle burning in front of it. Yeltsin bowing before the tsar's casket was taken as a sign that the restoration would be soon - in Russian reckoning, that is - say, 50 - 60 years - tomorrow!

[Ferrus]

Putin has acted like a tsar
I remember hearing a Russian speak on why Putin has enjoyed such a high approval rating throughout his Presidency, and the answer was simple: 'he cracks skulls and gets things done'. Going mano-o-mano with the US and the EU has helped too, and he has made life a little harder for the despised Oligarchs.

If the Tsar were ever to be reinstalled, well I can only see it happening within the framework of a constitutional monarchy with the power still residing in the political elite. Still, both Spain and Cambodia had successful restorations so it is not a political impossibility.

You have a high opinion of monarchy, what of the German/Prussian royal family, do you think the Kaiser should have abidicated in 1918? The chances of the German royal family being reinstalled is very dim, but apparently the German aristocrats keep up many of their traditions.

[omnirook]

I remember hearing a Russian speak on why Putin has enjoyed such a high approval rating throughout his Presidency, and the answer was simple: 'he cracks skulls and gets things done'. Going mano-o-mano with the US and the EU has helped too, and he has made life a little harder for the despised Oligarchs.

If the Tsar were ever to be reinstalled, well I can only see it happening within the framework of a constitutional monarchy with the power still residing in the political elite. Still, both Spain and Cambodia had successful restorations so it is not a political impossibility.

You have a high opinion of monarchy, what of the German/Prussian royal family, do you think the Kaiser should have abidicated in 1918? The chances of the German royal family being reinstalled is very dim, but apparently the German aristocrats keep up many of their traditions.

The kaiser's power was never as absolute as the tsar's; indeed, the kaiser was more a of constitutional monarch than an autocrat, though, certainly, he was more powerful a constitutional monarch than his cousin, King George. In theory, his power was absolute - but it was limited by precedence - and fear of the French Revolution. Wilhelm II was a weak man w/emotional problems and perhaps Turret's Syndrome - his odd behavior and frequent episodes of bizzarre acting out were problematic. Bismark was particularly disappointed by the kaiser - and the feeling was mutual! Wilhelm and his cousin, the Austrian Emporer, should not have abdicated (whether they actually did is one of those legal tangles that keep historians awake at night but which is moot in the real world) ... Wilhelm showed character in his exile. He refused to acknowledge Hitler and had nothing nice to say about the Nazi's after Hindenburg's death. He even refused the Nazi honor guard - but it was posted at his house, anyway. That Hitler gave him a state funeral was a fraud - but it suited propaganda purposes. The crown prince was a lukewarm Nazi in the 1930's but quickly lost his taste for Hitler and fascism ... No, the German monarchy will not be restored. Bulgaria and Russia and even Italy are more likely to allow someone to sit down on their empty thrones.

Of course, a restored Russian monarchy would be constitutional. Of course. But that might - in my private opinion - be more detrimental than beneficial. "Democracy" is always only a sop to an ambitious middle-class, who like to pretend that they have some sort of say in what happens. To install a constitutional monarchy in Russia would be to repeat what has happened in the UK - the sovereign placed in a gilded cage, while an elite group rules in his/her name, propped up by a fairly large middle class, who - unwittingly - are complicit in establishing the money interests as prime in the land. The history of England (and therefore of Scotland and Wales) has been a study in how the money interests penned in the royal power w/o robbing the common people of their glittering monarch. At first, the peers were used; now they have been dumped. What remains is a network of bureaucrats who came out of the public schools and who went to a handful of the "right" universities. (John Major, w/his correspondence school education, was a remarkable exception - and that was one of the things that I liked about him. He was not one of "them.") ... Point is, "democracy" in the West is very much the story of how the merchants and bankers and other scum managed to take control, robbing the people of the one thing that had always protected them, the sovereign. Study history - take a close look. The monarchs were always popular w/the people. Why? They protected the people. It's nearly all lies about the monarchs having been tyrrants. No, they stood in the way of the money interests. They stood for a world where money was not everything, where money was not what made a person powerful - and nowadays even glamorous.

[Ferrus]

Yes - the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution established this principle. It is interesting that the monarch placed in the throne after the latter event was from the Netherlands - a land infamous for its powerful mercantile elite.

A part of me thinks that the present situation has its origins in the renaissance - first in the Northern Italian towns, then in the free states of Germany, in the Netherlands and into England with growing confidence in the 16th century. Would you say the oligarchies that rules the North Italian towns were the proto-type of todays middle-class business elites? They seemed to take a rather dim view to interference from the German Holy Roman Emperors.

It also interests me though looking at the history of the Papacy. The monarchs of the Empire, France and England all clashed with the Papacy - who was basically a monarch in central Italy - would you say the Papacy was a positive or malign influence for your average citizen? The English Kings' view was quite often that the Pope was merely there to aid the 'criminous clerks', with their special laws. Indeed, the traditional Marxist view is that religion is a sop, an opiate, and certainly after the 18th century this seems true. Napoleon's toying with the Pope, and their eventual relegation to high-powered priest-theologians during the unification of Italy suggests that there was a shift towards the church becoming a pawn of commercial interests - as indeed many Protestant churches already has in the 17th and 18th centuries.

[omnirook]

Yes - the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution established this principle. It is interesting that the monarch placed in the throne after the latter event was from the Netherlands - a land infamous for its powerful mercantile elite.

A part of me thinks that the present situation has its origins in the renaissance - first in the Northern Italian towns, then in the free states of Germany, in the Netherlands and into England with growing confidence in the 16th century. Would you say the oligarchies that rules the North Italian towns were the proto-type of todays middle-class business elites? They seemed to take a rather dim view to interference from the German Holy Roman Emperors.

It also interests me though looking at the history of the Papacy. The monarchs of the Empire, France and England all clashed with the Papacy - who was basically a monarch in central Italy - would you say the Papacy was a positive or malign influence for your average citizen? The English Kings' view was quite often that the Pope was merely there to aid the 'criminous clerks', with their special laws. Indeed, the traditional Marxist view is that religion is a sop, an opiate, and certainly after the 18th century this seems true. Napoleon's toying with the Pope, and their eventual relegation to high-powered priest-theologians during the unification of Italy suggests that there was a shift towards the church becoming a pawn of commercial interests - as indeed many Protestant churches already has in the 17th and 18th centuries.

You have a very astute mind! You are at university, I believe - what is your major? Late teens, early twenties, if you did not delay going to college, so, for one so young, you have done a good deal of reading - and an impressive amount of thinking (which is more important). I am glad to come across someone who is able to follow my points about how society was gradually transformed from a community into a business venture, a business venture which is perfect as a model for how one can profit from every sector, from each condition w/in each sector, so that wealth is accrued from every conceivable direction. Do you understand that? Do you agree that "poverty" is actually the most profitable venue w/in the scheme? Do you agree that this - the way that the dominant world is and the way that the rest of the world is quickly becoming - is merely the inevitable product of allowing the merchant class (which includes bankers and creditors and insurance companies, marketers, and information technologists, etc) to control society?

In ancient Japan, the merchants were not the lowest scum, the lowest of the low, the utterly filthy, the truly worthless, hated, and despised class for nothing. The least peasant, the lowest serf, lower than him by far, his youngest daughter, was a million miles above a business man. Business men were necessary, so sorry, but so low that a samurai would not condescend to acknowledge their existence, never mind speak directly to them. No, go-betweens were essential. A swine banker was needed for a loan of a few thousand koku - let him crawl on his belly like the worm that he is to beg to be allowed the honor of making the loan. Cut him in half if he dares to mention interest. Of course, since he is subhuman, garbage in a man's shape, there will be interest - but only vermin would mention it. The usual rate will be paid. Leave the money and slither off.

The northern Italian towns were the starting place of much - you are correct. Modern banking - there were banks in the ancient world, but they were rather different - and credit - again, there was credit in the ancient world, but, again, it was rather different - and the rise of rich men to power and prominence. That rich men were not lowlives who skulked about the great halls of the nobles, looking for ways to profit from the wars and other conflicts of their lords, was a new idea. The Medici led the pack - and, as you know, some of them wore the papal tiara! The idea that a lot of money could sway the world was not new - what was new was the idea that the money could belong to nonentities, that the clerks and accountants and bankers and lawyers (these are modern distinctions, born out of specialization as the system has been elaborated) could be the ones who wielded power - and not behind the scenes but out in the open. In northern Italy, the rich became exalted and took firm control. This caused trouble elsewhere. Like cancer, the idea metasticized and spread - and has continued to spread, is spreading as I type. What helps it is that it is seemingly "democratic," is seemingly open to anybody, does not depend upon birth, etc. That's nonsense, of course, but the public is STUPID. Yes - I lean to the LEFT. But that does NOT mean that I have to be a hypocrite. The public is STUPID. One set of basically decent masters whose historic record tilts heavily toward the good when put on the scales of Justice has been replaced by the lowest, foulest, cruelest pack of beasts ever to walk upright. Everything that could favor the truly wicked, the truly monstrous, the lowest brute is ensconced in statutes! Every emotionally crippled weasel of a louse is given license to bleed the public dry - and this is called "virtue."

I was raised to be a Roman Catholic. I have been apostate for 20 years. The RCC has always been a sewer, a foul sink, a whore, a pimp, a savage. It's one saving grace has been its good taste. Even I cannot deny that the RCC has the pretiest buildings, the finest artwork, the best music. All else is - vile. When the pope was a secular ruler, he was far more corrupt than any other secular ruler. Now that he is a coccooned (and caged) theologian/priest, he is even worse. A true pope, one who was decent and not scum in vestaments, would tell the poor to use birth control and stop having so many children: "Hello! The more of you that there are, the less each one of you is worth! Stop playing into their hands. Remember the Black plague? The standard of living for the poor rose geometrically after the plague had killed off a too numerous work force. Stop having babies!"

[Ferrus]

You have a very astute mind! You are at university, I believe - what is your major? Late teens, early twenties, if you did not delay going to college, so, for one so young, you have done a good deal of reading - and an impressive amount of thinking (which is more important). I am glad to come across someone who is able to follow my points about how society was gradually transformed from a community into a business venture, a business venture which is perfect as a model for how one can profit from every sector, from each condition w/in each sector, so that wealth is accrued from every conceivable direction. Do you understand that? Do you agree that "poverty" is actually the most profitable venue w/in the scheme? Do you agree that this - the way that the dominant world is and the way that the rest of the world is quickly becoming - is merely the inevitable product of allowing the merchant class (which includes bankers and creditors and insurance companies, marketers, and information technologists, etc) to control society?
I'm studying History and Politics. I try to ignore the reading lists as much as is possible and enjoy the grand symphony of History, Philosophy, Politics and Art as a whole.

Well, I have always assumed that the merchant class - or the corporations have a stranglehold on power. The manner in which sovereign states cringe to the business elite of multi-nationals is evidence enough. I hadn't quite understood the means by which this was achieved. I am constantly seeing corportate slogans, that have become accepted buzzwords, even against traditional British cyncism, whenever I apply for a job I am faced with corporate shit. Even in the job I am doing over the summer - working for a contractor company in the NHS installing and maintaining computerised stocking systems, there is the endless pressure for cosmetic, money hungry nonsense, rather than a genuine concern with the needs of the nurse, the staff and the patients. God knows how many people have I spoken to who say they feel nothing more than a number. Coporate power, which is mephitic to my noise, reeks from every oriface of life now, the government, the state, the community are mere background noises.

Something I have been thinking of - the very nature of money seems to have changed since, as you say, human existence became one big corporate venture. In feudal and ancient times money was a tool to aid bartering and trading. Sure, there were those who horded it, but in such societies there was always the threat of devaulation or theft. Thus land was more important, indeed food was too. There seemed to be a society which was more synchronised with what really matter in human society - food, water and shelter. The medieval heirarchy had a system of mutal support, which whilst enriching some born to privilege. The lord would protect the people from other lords with violence and punish crime. He needed the peasants to be reasonably well-fed, and he needed to ensure their welfare to satisfy the local Baron with taxes, which meant making sure the peasants were happy to work for him. You compared the Soviet Union to the mafia - feudalism was much the same, and the Greco-Roman system was very similar too, with slaves instead of serfs. In modern discriptions the peasants are always suffering terrible lives. For sure, by modern standards it was hard, but was probably not much worse than the lifes of factory workers in the 19th century or the majority of African peasants today.

But now money has become everything. Money, whose value any basic economics text book is entirely in the head and serves no purpose outside our economic structure but as handy toilet paper has become the raison d'etre, the most important thing. Once a man's value was determined by his probity, now it is just the number of naughts in his bankstatement. And, you know, it suits the merchants doesn't it? It means they can rake in interest - for we all know the modern economy is precariously balanced on debt and 'investments' handed by the banks - banks who make money simply for... having money. As do the investment bankers and speculators. As for the owners of business, such an economy based on numbers which are more important that actual goods suits them. It is an elegant system for hording goods which they quite obviously don't need. Pay the fools who work for you however - because by trapping them in the money nexus they have no notion that other arrangements are possible, that actually money should only be a tool and not an end in itself.

Marx was a noble man, and so he assumed base finance was just a superstructure over the material structure. But, I think, one of the most clever ways in which the mind of the proleteriat has been enthralled is by pumping them, quite unobstrusively, with this ideology of invisible cash.

But even governments are obsessed with money now, and so have been rendered prone under the heel of the business elite. From a specifically British perspective, George Mobiot's The Age of Consent is an excellent example of how this has happened.

In ancient Japan, the merchants were not the lowest scum, the lowest of the low, the utterly filthy, the truly worthless, hated, and despised class for nothing. The least peasant, the lowest serf, lower than him by far, his youngest daughter, was a million miles above a business man. Business men were necessary, so sorry, but so low that a samurai would not condescend to acknowledge their existence, never mind speak directly to them. No, go-betweens were essential. A swine banker was needed for a loan of a few thousand koku - let him crawl on his belly like the worm that he is to beg to be allowed the honor of making the loan. Cut him in half if he dares to mention interest. Of course, since he is subhuman, garbage in a man's shape, there will be interest - but only vermin would mention it. The usual rate will be paid. Leave the money and slither off.[quote]
In medieval Europe, it was seen as a necessity too but was deprecated. Why else have Jews been given such a vicious stereotype? Because only they could practice usury and so had a reputation as moneylenders. The fact that within the Jewish community charity is important, as is looking after other Jews in difficulty (something Muslims do to, but which Christians have been noticable lax at) is forgotten. As if the fact that while many of the early bankers were Jewish, a good number were also German and Italian.

How peculiar that the church has dumped its admonishments against usury, but kept on with a steady pace the attacks on sexual behaviour derived from a few Old Testament rules in Leviticus. Clean abandonment of their own principles in the face of merchant culture.
[quote]The northern Italian towns were the starting place of much - you are correct. Modern banking - there were banks in the ancient world, but they were rather different - and credit - again, there was credit in the ancient world, but, again, it was rather different - and the rise of rich men to power and prominence. That rich men were not lowlives who skulked about the great halls of the nobles, looking for ways to profit from the wars and other conflicts of their lords, was a new idea. The Medici led the pack - and, as you know, some of them wore the papal tiara! The idea that a lot of money could sway the world was not new - what was new was the idea that the money could belong to nonentities, that the clerks and accountants and bankers and lawyers (these are modern distinctions, born out of specialization as the system has been elaborated) could be the ones who wielded power - and not behind the scenes but out in the open. In northern Italy, the rich became exalted and took firm control. This caused trouble elsewhere. Like cancer, the idea metasticized and spread - and has continued to spread, is spreading as I type. What helps it is that it is seemingly "democratic," is seemingly open to anybody, does not depend upon birth, etc. That's nonsense, of course, but the public is STUPID. Yes - I lean to the LEFT. But that does NOT mean that I have to be a hypocrite. The public is STUPID. One set of basically decent masters whose historic record tilts heavily toward the good when put on the scales of Justice has been replaced by the lowest, foulest, cruelest pack of beasts ever to walk upright. Everything that could favor the truly wicked, the truly monstrous, the lowest brute is ensconced in statutes! Every emotionally crippled weasel of a louse is given license to bleed the public dry - and this is called "virtue."
Yes, it was once considered discreditable to be money hungry, and those who were too avaricious were hated. Now being rich, being 'enterprising', being a dissembling piece of shit is lauded as the greatest virtue any one can have.

And the public are stupid, yes. Plato was right in his assesment of democracy - democracy will always fall into tyranny, whether it is a tyranny of orators (in Hobbes' phrase) or a tyranny of money/food producing elite (as stated in Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor). Plato, 2500 years knew the dangers, and so 'democracy' in the shape we see it was deprecated, till it became useful to the business elite 100 years ago - for how better to delude them into thinking they have a 'share'? Bismarck's social democratic reforms are classic examples of how an elite often thinks it best to give a moderate sop as a way of mollifying the canaille. I have a natural aversion to monarchs in as much as royal birth is not necessarily a sign of mental excellence - though there have been brilliant monarchs, Fredrick the Great perhaps being my favourite - and so I wonder whether they can serve as enlightened despots, perhaps preferring the idea of Platonic guardians. Maybe the system would force them to be, the notion of some people being considered superior on the basis of birth is abhorrent to me - including, I may add, the process that happens now with the top universities, the private schools and of course corporate nepotism.

How did the bottom line become the normative benchmark of Western civilisation? How deluded we all must be if given this is the case we try to export these values abroad. No wonder the Chinese have isolated themselves. The Chinese seem to be trying to compete with the West, but whilst keeping the merchants on a tight leash. Perhaps they will attack back and the Communist party will fall, or perhaps they will temper some of Western Civilisations more self-destructive elements and thus grow stronger as a result. India too now how the economic clout to tell the IMF and the U.S. government to fuck off when they demand that the bureaucracy is cut down and social provisions are reduced It will be intresting to see if ultimately either of these economies eclipse the current economic model.

I was raised to be a Roman Catholic. I have been apostate for 20 years. The RCC has always been a sewer, a foul sink, a whore, a pimp, a savage. It's one saving grace has been its good taste. Even I cannot deny that the RCC has the pretiest buildings, the finest artwork, the best music. All else is - vile. When the pope was a secular ruler, he was far more corrupt than any other secular ruler. Now that he is a coccooned (and caged) theologian/priest, he is even worse. A true pope, one who was decent and not scum in vestaments, would tell the poor to use birth control and stop having so many children: "Hello! The more of you that there are, the less each one of you is worth! Stop playing into their hands. Remember the Black plague? The standard of living for the poor rose geometrically after the plague had killed off a too numerous work force. Stop having babies!"
Well, I would say the RCC has the best aesthetic quality over all - indeed many artists have converted to Catholicism just for the art and from no real religious feeling - though I prefer Orthodox iconography to the sometimes mawkish Catholic painting tradition. Rosy cheeked madonnas holding cherubic Jesuses tend to grate after a while, whereas Orthodox painting is wonderfully melodramatic and mysterious.

As for the Pope, as much as I find it hard to sympathise with the religious fanatic, anti-semite and cruel (given the events of the Peasant's war) Martin Luther, he was surely right. The RCC was in on the act of money making before anyone else. Germany was their market - the bankers, the Fuggers would help build the pope a nice new palace by selling tickets out of purgatory. You have to accord them a modicum of respect for sheer hardihood. Then the protestants came along and opened the floodgates for all manner of merchants because of the disingenuous principle of the 'protestant work ethic'.

And contreception... the RCC is at its worst here. Along with such glories as the crusades and the inquitision, preventing contreception in Africa has to rank highly. There are millions of African catholics who will likely die of starvation or HIV. Sure, for the Pope and the first world Catholics - who largely ignore the interdiction anyway, European Catholics are markedly less devout than African ones, 2 child families being very common - the contreception issue isn't big. In a part of the world barely capable of feeding itself, ridden with HIV, the abidence of this policy is arrantly iniquituous.

[omnirook]

I'm studying History and Politics. I try to ignore the reading lists as much as is possible and enjoy the grand symphony of History, Philosophy, Politics and Art as a whole.

Well, I have always assumed that the merchant class - or the corporations have a stranglehold on power. The manner in which sovereign states cringe to the business elite of multi-nationals is evidence enough. I hadn't quite understood the means by which this was achieved. I am constantly seeing corportate slogans, that have become accepted buzzwords, even against traditional British cyncism, whenever I apply for a job I am faced with corporate shit. Even in the job I am doing over the summer - working for a contractor company in the NHS installing and maintaining computerised stocking systems, there is the endless pressure for cosmetic, money hungry nonsense, rather than a genuine concern with the needs of the nurse, the staff and the patients. God knows how many people have I spoken to who say they feel nothing more than a number. Coporate power, which is mephitic to my noise, reeks from every oriface of life now, the government, the state, the community are mere background noises.

There is no concern w/the needs of the nurse; she is the medical world's equivalent of a skivvy: the only reason that she gets a brush w/a long stem to work with is because she would have to break the bottle to wash it out otherwise. As for the patients - the medical world is unique! The customer is powerless and has no choice, so he gets treated like a beggar. This is something which people do not pick up on. Only customers who have choices are treated w/any respect - or I should say "courtesy" because nobody but nobody in business, no matter the type of business, has the least respect for his customers. Customers are prey, simple as that, and being nice to them gets them to hold still while they are being "slaughtered."

Nikolai: Fuck you. Don't talk to me. Walk over there. Wait until I have examined the cars.

That was him at the car dealer, looking over 3 new limousines that we had purchased. You see, he understands that a car dealer is a car dealer.


Something I have been thinking of - the very nature of money seems to have changed since, as you say, human existence became one big corporate venture. In feudal and ancient times money was a tool to aid bartering and trading. Sure, there were those who horded it, but in such societies there was always the threat of devaulation or theft. Thus land was more important, indeed food was too. There seemed to be a society which was more synchronised with what really matter in human society - food, water and shelter. The medieval heirarchy had a system of mutal support, which whilst enriching some born to privilege. The lord would protect the people from other lords with violence and punish crime. He needed the peasants to be reasonably well-fed, and he needed to ensure their welfare to satisfy the local Baron with taxes, which meant making sure the peasants were happy to work for him. You compared the Soviet Union to the mafia - feudalism was much the same, and the Greco-Roman system was very similar too, with slaves instead of serfs. In modern discriptions the peasants are always suffering terrible lives. For sure, by modern standards it was hard, but was probably not much worse than the lifes of factory workers in the 19th century or the majority of African peasants today.

The feudal system was the one system that most benefitted the poor. Believe it or not. The peasants had rights, and they lived reasonably well by the standards of the day. Recent excavations of sites show that their homes were not at all horrid by Dark Age and Medieval standards. They were sound, were warm, they kept their occupants dry, and they had a fair amount of storage space, which can only mean one thing: the residents had things to store. Serfs had guaranteed days off, got treated to feasts that the lords had to supply on many of those days, and, as you say, they had to be fed enough to keep working. They did not own land, often they could not pick up and leave if they wanted - but, really, minus the bullshit, in how many ways were their lives different from the modern wage slave's life? Not many. The principle way was that the people above them were duty bound to them - protection, aid in times of trouble, easing up of rents and taxes when times were hard. Who has that nowadays?


But now money has become everything. Money, whose value any basic economics text book is entirely in the head and serves no purpose outside our economic structure but as handy toilet paper has become the raison d'etre, the most important thing. Once a man's value was determined by his probity, now it is just the number of naughts in his bankstatement. And, you know, it suits the merchants doesn't it? It means they can rake in interest - for we all know the modern economy is precariously balanced on debt and 'investments' handed by the banks - banks who make money simply for... having money. As do the investment bankers and speculators. As for the owners of business, such an economy based on numbers which are more important that actual goods suits them. It is an elegant system for hording goods which they quite obviously don't need. Pay the fools who work for you however - because by trapping them in the money nexus they have no notion that other arrangements are possible, that actually money should only be a tool and not an end in itself.

The problem is that the capitalist system has become so pervasive that most people take it for the definition of reality itself. The appropriation and allocation of resources has become almost entirely symbolic. The system is - wishful thinking, dependent upon illusion and delusion. Ayn Rand said "Money is only as good as the willingness of people to accept it" - about that much, she was right. It has become necessary to create a world wherein the average person is put under tremendous pressure, a world wherein the average person is so put upon and confused that he runs about in circles, trying harder and harder to reach goals that will not make the least difference to him even if he does reach them. Constant noise, constant distraction - everybody must be plugged in, turned on - zoned out. Zombies do not rebel. If people woke up tomorrow and realized that what they were grinding away to accomplish was worthless, the whole of the system would collapse. I can only hope!


Marx was a noble man, and so he assumed base finance was just a superstructure over the material structure. But, I think, one of the most clever ways in which the mind of the proleteriat has been enthralled is by pumping them, quite unobstrusively, with this ideology of invisible cash.

But even governments are obsessed with money now, and so have been rendered prone under the heel of the business elite. From a specifically British perspective, George Mobiot's The Age of Consent is an excellent example of how this has happened.

In medieval Europe, it was seen as a necessity too but was deprecated. Why else have Jews been given such a vicious stereotype? Because only they could practice usury and so had a reputation as moneylenders. The fact that within the Jewish community charity is important, as is looking after other Jews in difficulty (something Muslims do to, but which Christians have been noticable lax at) is forgotten. As if the fact that while many of the early bankers were Jewish, a good number were also German and Italian.

Jews and blacks and other put upon people have fallen victim to the marginalization that they have suffered. "I'm going to cut off your hands - then I'm going to punish you because you do not have hands."


How peculiar that the church has dumped its admonishments against usury, but kept on with a steady pace the attacks on sexual behaviour derived from a few Old Testament rules in Leviticus. Clean abandonment of their own principles in the face of merchant culture.
Controlling people's sex lives is very important, is key to controlling them. Society will never let go. Never. Now that sex itself is no longer possible to brand as evil, the effort to find particular sex acts, particular sexualities, that can be criminalized has been ramped up. It was not long ago that so-called feminists were screaming that any time that a man had sex w/a woman it was rape - that women were socialized to have sex w/men, whether they wanted to. Gee. No kidding. Wow!


Yes, it was once considered discreditable to be money hungry, and those who were too avaricious were hated. Now being rich, being 'enterprising', being a dissembling piece of shit is lauded as the greatest virtue any one can have.
Those who rule are inevitably going to make virtues of their character. Unfortunately, those who rule now have no character - not one worth having, anyway.


And the public are stupid, yes. Plato was right in his assesment of democracy - democracy will always fall into tyranny, whether it is a tyranny of orators (in Hobbes' phrase) or a tyranny of money/food producing elite (as stated in Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor). Plato, 2500 years knew the dangers, and so 'democracy' in the shape we see it was deprecated, till it became useful to the business elite 100 years ago - for how better to delude them into thinking they have a 'share'? Bismarck's social democratic reforms are classic examples of how an elite often thinks it best to give a moderate sop as a way of mollifying the canaille. I have a natural aversion to monarchs in as much as royal birth is not necessarily a sign of mental excellence - though there have been brilliant monarchs, Fredrick the Great perhaps being my favourite - and so I wonder whether they can serve as enlightened despots, perhaps preferring the idea of Platonic guardians. Maybe the system would force them to be, the notion of some people being considered superior on the basis of birth is abhorrent to me - including, I may add, the process that happens now with the top universities, the private schools and of course corporate nepotism.
Excellent minds are - excellent! But not necessary to rule. Frederick the Great stands out, yes - but there were dozens of others who ruled over their people, providing continuity and stability, boring, perhaps - but not to be sneezed at! Ultimately, a monarch is a symbol. No monarch ever ruled alone. The best monarchs were always the ones who had a talent for choosing talent. History tells us that monarchy was the preferred form of government for above 6,000 years - and it was not tyrranny or even mild abuse that made for the downfall of monarchy. It was the rise of the money power nexus, that and nothing else. All the rest is bullshit. Once the money elite were able to get their property rights established as though they were natural law, it was all over as far as any other consideration went. The single most important aspect of monarchy before "democracy" was that all the land and resources ultimately belonged to the sovereign (symbol of the state). Private ownership of land and resources has led us to where we are. And there is no escape until, once again, nobody may own land or resources. And, really, most people do not. Yes, a billionaire who can get zoning laws changed and who can force the government to look the other way as he does as he pleases, owns his property. The average dolt w/a mortgage does NOT - and never will. Eminent Domain has seen to that.


How did the bottom line become the normative benchmark of Western civilisation? How deluded we all must be if given this is the case we try to export these values abroad. No wonder the Chinese have isolated themselves. The Chinese seem to be trying to compete with the West, but whilst keeping the merchants on a tight leash. Perhaps they will attack back and the Communist party will fall, or perhaps they will temper some of Western Civilisations more self-destructive elements and thus grow stronger as a result. India too now how the economic clout to tell the IMF and the U.S. government to fuck off when they demand that the bureaucracy is cut down and social provisions are reduced It will be intresting to see if ultimately either of these economies eclipse the current economic model.
The Chinese will sell out. They have isolated themselves in keeping w/their ancient tradition of isolating themselves - but they will sell out as surely as everybody else has sold out. Capitalism and the global economy are the ancient wet dream of the rich - endless income w/o expense, complete, unfettered control, irresponsibility and indifference and cruelty enshrined in the law more firmly than any rules brought down from Mt Sinai by Moses. Having the right to fuck people w/o mercy is the lodestone of capitalism - being able to force people to do as they are told and have them thank you for it on top of that is too much to resist. Understand - it's not good enough to beat an enemy. No. He must be humiliated. He must be made to suffer far more than is necessary.


Well, I would say the RCC has the best aesthetic quality over all - indeed many artists have converted to Catholicism just for the art and from no real religious feeling - though I prefer Orthodox iconography to the sometimes mawkish Catholic painting tradition. Rosy cheeked madonnas holding cherubic Jesuses tend to grate after a while, whereas Orthodox painting is wonderfully melodramatic and mysterious.

As for the Pope, as much as I find it hard to sympathise with the religious fanatic, anti-semite and cruel (given the events of the Peasant's war) Martin Luther, he was surely right. The RCC was in on the act of money making before anyone else. Germany was their market - the bankers, the Fuggers would help build the pope a nice new palace by selling tickets out of purgatory. You have to accord them a modicum of respect for sheer hardihood. Then the protestants came along and opened the floodgates for all manner of merchants because of the disingenuous principle of the 'protestant work ethic'.

And contreception... the RCC is at its worst here. Along with such glories as the crusades and the inquitision, preventing contreception in Africa has to rank highly. There are millions of African catholics who will likely die of starvation or HIV. Sure, for the Pope and the first world Catholics - who largely ignore the interdiction anyway, European Catholics are markedly less devout than African ones, 2 child families being very common - the contreception issue isn't big. In a part of the world barely capable of feeding itself, ridden with HIV, the abidence of this policy is arrantly iniquituous.

[Ferrus]

There is no concern w/the needs of the nurse; she is the medical world's equivalent of a skivvy: the only reason that she gets a brush w/a long stem to work with is because she would have to break the bottle to wash it out otherwise. As for the patients - the medical world is unique! The customer is powerless and has no choice, so he gets treated like a beggar. This is something which people do not pick up on. Only customers who have choices are treated w/any respect - or I should say "courtesy" because nobody but nobody in business, no matter the type of business, has the least respect for his customers. Customers are prey, simple as that, and being nice to them gets them to hold still while they are being "slaughtered."

Nikolai: Fuck you. Don't talk to me. Walk over there. Wait until I have examined the cars.
Yes, this much is true. The problem is the ones doing the actual dirty work of selling are quite often in the employ of those who sit in leather chairs and smoke cigars all day, sweating through a series of gruelling 'meetings' (with Cognac) and golf games.

The feudal system was the one system that most benefitted the poor. Believe it or not. The peasants had rights, and they lived reasonably well by the standards of the day. Recent excavations of sites show that their homes were not at all horrid by Dark Age and Medieval standards. They were sound, were warm, they kept their occupants dry, and they had a fair amount of storage space, which can only mean one thing: the residents had things to store. Serfs had guaranteed days off, got treated to feasts that the lords had to supply on many of those days, and, as you say, they had to be fed enough to keep working. They did not own land, often they could not pick up and leave if they wanted - but, really, minus the bullshit, in how many ways were their lives different from the modern wage slave's life? Not many. The principle way was that the people above them were duty bound to them - protection, aid in times of trouble, easing up of rents and taxes when times were hard. Who has that nowadays?
This is very much true. When one observes the French Revolution, it is interesting that it is spearheaded by the middle class. The peasants were largely opposed, and thus were slaughtered in one of Europe's first genocides (the Vendee).

The problem is that the capitalist system has become so pervasive that most people take it for the definition of reality itself. The appropriation and allocation of resources has become almost entirely symbolic. The system is - wishful thinking, dependent upon illusion and delusion. Ayn Rand said "Money is only as good as the willingness of people to accept it" - about that much, she was right. It has become necessary to create a world wherein the average person is put under tremendous pressure, a world wherein the average person is so put upon and confused that he runs about in circles, trying harder and harder to reach goals that will not make the least difference to him even if he does reach them. Constant noise, constant distraction - everybody must be plugged in, turned on - zoned out. Zombies do not rebel. If people woke up tomorrow and realized that what they were grinding away to accomplish was worthless, the whole of the system would collapse. I can only hope!
I sometimes think though that people don't want to wake up. They take a perverse pleasure in deluding themselves. Religion works on the same principle. They think they can banish misery from their lifes with delusion. And, maybe some can.


Controlling people's sex lives is very important, is key to controlling them. Society will never let go. Never. Now that sex itself is no longer possible to brand as evil, the effort to find particular sex acts, particular sexualities, that can be criminalized has been ramped up. It was not long ago that so-called feminists were screaming that any time that a man had sex w/a woman it was rape - that women were socialized to have sex w/men, whether they wanted to. Gee. No kidding. Wow!
Yes - paedophillia has become a massive issue in this country when it never was before. It was almost accepted in some quaters. Now it is the cause celebre with politicians falling over themselves to enforce ever harsher laws. Children who are murdered become saccahrine icons for the media, and sell papers, which is disgusting. 100 years ago there seemed to be more resignation to the fact that these things happen sometimes, and that there is no 'crisis' except that which the media has engendered to promote their damn output.


Those who rule are inevitably going to make virtues of their character. Unfortunately, those who rule now have no character - not one worth having, anyway.
True enough, a lot of world leaders seem to delight in opportunistic posturing whereas there was a sense of shared dignity before.


Excellent minds are - excellent! But not necessary to rule. Frederick the Great stands out, yes - but there were dozens of others who ruled over their people, providing continuity and stability, boring, perhaps - but not to be sneezed at! Ultimately, a monarch is a symbol. No monarch ever ruled alone. The best monarchs were always the ones who had a talent for choosing talent. History tells us that monarchy was the preferred form of government for above 6,000 years - and it was not tyrranny or even mild abuse that made for the downfall of monarchy. It was the rise of the money power nexus, that and nothing else. All the rest is bullshit. Once the money elite were able to get their property rights established as though they were natural law, it was all over as far as any other consideration went. The single most important aspect of monarchy before "democracy" was that all the land and resources ultimately belonged to the sovereign (symbol of the state). Private ownership of land and resources has led us to where we are. And there is no escape until, once again, nobody may own land or resources. And, really, most people do not. Yes, a billionaire who can get zoning laws changed and who can force the government to look the other way as he does as he pleases, owns his property. The average dolt w/a mortgage does NOT - and never will. Eminent Domain has seen to that.
This again is true. Ultimately all private property is held at the sufferance of the sovereign power. What the capitalists have done is seize this sovereign power and use this to create a legal and social system, through that states legitmate force, in which private property benefits their needs. Patent laws, coportate personhood and other such laws all clearly show this.


The Chinese will sell out. They have isolated themselves in keeping w/their ancient tradition of isolating themselves - but they will sell out as surely as everybody else has sold out. Capitalism and the global economy are the ancient wet dream of the rich - endless income w/o expense, complete, unfettered control, irresponsibility and indifference and cruelty enshrined in the law more firmly than any rules brought down from Mt Sinai by Moses. Having the right to fuck people w/o mercy is the lodestone of capitalism - being able to force people to do as they are told and have them thank you for it on top of that is too much to resist. Understand - it's not good enough to beat an enemy. No. He must be humiliated. He must be made to suffer far more than is necessary.
Yes - well China has, for 200 years been the dream of western, especially British and American, capitalists. Untold billions of people to hook on opium/tobacco, or whatever new contrivance the coportate world delivers - vast sums of money to be made.

By the way, what is your view on the 'war on drugs' in the US? Is it basically the corporate world, especially those in the tobacco and alcohol industry, fearing a loss of their monopoly? I can see no other reason why many coporate suits would oppose drugs, indeed it wouldn't surprise me if many of them have made a pretty penny in the crack trade.

[silady79]

what war on drugs? I thought that war was given up on. and if it hasn't been the u.s. sure is doin a shitty job of it

[EL84]

Interesting and stimulating thread. I have been exposed to new ideas, and agreed with a lot of what was written. Just wanted to comment on a couple of Asian things.


In ancient Japan, the merchants were not the lowest scum, the lowest of the low, the utterly filthy, the truly worthless, hated, and despised class for nothing. The least peasant, the lowest serf, lower than him by far, his youngest daughter, was a million miles above a business man."

While there is something in this and much as I'd like to see some bankers disemboweled, there were many other unsavoury aspects of that society. The least peasant could also be cut in half by the elite. Birth determined position pretty rigidly. IIRC the Eta (did the unclean trades) in the Buraku were the lowest, lower than the merchant class.




...The Chinese will sell out. They have isolated themselves in keeping w/their ancient tradition of isolating themselves - but they will sell out as surely as everybody else has sold out. Capitalism and the global economy are the ancient wet dream of the rich - endless income w/o expense, complete, unfettered control, irresponsibility and indifference and cruelty enshrined in the law...

The last two hundred years or so (and especially 1949-198*) of Chinese history are a bit of an anomaly. The Chinese invented paper money and the use of something with no inherent value as a proxy. They have no problem with the accumulation of wealth, with extremely unequal distribution of wealth, or with the merchant class. There is no cultural or religious association of (the love of) money with evil. They were capitalists before anyone else was, and they are doing amazing things in the genre now. You don't need to worry about them selling out and copying the West, they're already way ahead.

Most of the money in Asia is controlled by overseas Chinese, who identify primarily as Chinese, even though they are not citizens of the PRC.

They can dictate how they deal with the rest of the world now, because they have a large army (this time with modern weapons), a large population, and enormous wealth. They will not be subjects again.

They are by no means isolated either, for example anecdotally I believe it's easier to trade with China than with the USA, I have relatives doing both. Certainly getting goods and people in and out of China is much easier than the USA.

I think they're a very interesting society now, because they're a capitalist dictatorship, led by engineers. I don't know of any other government in which all the top positions are occupied by engineers. I wonder if it's related to the pre-revolution ideal of the civil service, which was a meritocracy, if you passed the exam, no matter what your background, you were in.

[PiccoloNamek]

IIRC the Eta (did the unclean trades) in the Buraku were the lowest, lower than the merchant class.

This was the impression that I was under as well. The Eta, the people who had jobs such as handling corpses and tanning leather were infinitely more despised and hated than any merchant.

[Ferrus]

what war on drugs? I thought that war was given up on. and if it hasn't been the u.s. sure is doin a shitty job of it
Well, they are still criminalised for barely rational reasons.

[apple]

Nikolai: Fuck you. Don't talk to me. Walk over there. Wait until I have examined the cars.


Oh yes, I've forgotten how charming New Yorkers tend to be. ;)

[Oso Mocoso]

Oh yes, I've forgotten how charming New Yorkers tend to be. ;)

There are a few of us who actually try. :)

--Oso

[apple]

There are a few of us who actually try. :)

--Oso

But you're probably not originally from New York then. More like a southern/ west coast transplant.

[Limey]

It would have been better and we'd all have been a little wealthier, not just financially.
The Republican use of 9/11 as a political stance and tool was pretty sickening. In the UK at the height of IRA terrorism, we didn't see Thatcher try to score points on the labour party for lack of patriotism in a Nuremberg trial way we've seen here at re-election time.

I'm still puzzled as to what was meant by "deliver Ohio" from the head of Diebold.
This country may have been run by more corrupt people in the past, but it has probably never been closer to a dictatorship in history with the [mis]use of executive privilege and the long reaching PATRIOT act. It has gone past conservatism, sadly most conservatives treat it like supporting a football team and will not abandon their side until or maybe even past the bitter, corrupt end.

[omnirook]

Yes, this much is true. The problem is the ones doing the actual dirty work of selling are quite often in the employ of those who sit in leather chairs and smoke cigars all day, sweating through a series of gruelling 'meetings' (with Cognac) and golf games.


As a business owner, I can say that your picture is accurate more for the corporate world than for privately held businesses, at least for the majority of privately held businesses that are small compared to corporations. Starting Sunday afternoon, Nikolai and I were on a run that lasted until 10 o'clock last night. I got one one hour nap along the way. Otherwise, I was working "flow control" for 4 separate events. That entails overseeing the work and making sure that everybody moves when it is time to move. Nikolai does the security, always. He's not a customer person.

Sometimes, moving a celebrity from point A to point B entails evading the media, evading the public. You'd be amazed at how high-tech that is. Teams of decoys have to be scrambled - and we have to have codes in place because the papparazzi monitor radio transmissions and cellphone calls. "We're rolling. We just turned left onto 34th, headed east towards First." That could mean - we're headed north on Sixth Avenue, just passing 57th Street. One "command" van is on the streets, processing the information as it comes in. The van is equipped w/radios, video equipment (and a professional photographer (insurance purposes), GPS, 2 fax machines, cellphones (one dedicated to the police), and computers that are tracking all of it. We have the decoys out, and we have cars on the road to run interference, everything from jalopies w/North Carolina plates to yellow cabs to a faux ambulance - a squad of yellow cabs will cluster around a mob of our people, pretending to be New Yorkers looking for cabs, blocking up a whole intersection while the client's car gets away. We have people working to counter the papparazzi - following them, delaying them. Nikolai is in charge of all that, and I'm trying hard to make sure that the client remains oblivious and has a comfortable ride - as well as keeping the insurance adjustor who rides w/us from having a nervous breakdown. It's exciting - and exhausting.

Me: Well, who told him to put the steak on! We'll call when she's about to arrive! Then he can put the steak on, goddamit! What do you mean that he doesn't have another steak?! Fuck! All right. I'll get another steak.

Then I've got to call the butcher, get him out of bed, bribe him to cut up and deliver a package of those outrageously expensive Japanese steaks to the restaurant - and get a car to his home to drive him.

But, yes, Nikolai keeps the smell of cigars perfuming the air as we ride.



This is very much true. When one observes the French Revolution, it is interesting that it is spearheaded by the middle class. The peasants were largely opposed, and thus were slaughtered in one of Europe's first genocides (the Vendee).


Wat Tyler was not alone! The poor have never led a successful "revolution" - successful revolutions have always come out of the middle-class - or, in the case of Russia, the well-educated bureaucrat class. The poor are not revolution minded. They will not rise up until they are starving. 2 classes of people have a clue about the world - the rich and the poor. The middle is lost - and causes a great deal of trouble. It is for the "benefit" of the middle that the illusions of "democracy" and "rule of law" and all the other bullshit are maintained. None of that applies to the rich - and the poor know better. It's the middle that's braindead. All any "successful" revolution ever accomplished was getting rid of one set of elites and replacing them w/another - always, always w/people who were unfit for rule.

I sometimes think though that people don't want to wake up. They take a perverse pleasure in deluding themselves. Religion works on the same principle. They think they can banish misery from their lifes with delusion. And, maybe some can.




Yes - paedophillia has become a massive issue in this country when it never was before. It was almost accepted in some quaters. Now it is the cause celebre with politicians falling over themselves to enforce ever harsher laws. Children who are murdered become saccahrine icons for the media, and sell papers, which is disgusting. 100 years ago there seemed to be more resignation to the fact that these things happen sometimes, and that there is no 'crisis' except that which the media has engendered to promote their damn output.


Again - the middle class. They are the baboons who fell for the bullshit about the "innocence of children." Television and the movies were narcotics that created visions of an idealized past and the hope for an idealized future if only human nature were removed from the equation. Children are NOT "innocent" - what they lack is experience, and inexperience does NOT equal innocence! Pedophilia is mostly a mirage. Yes, there are child molestors - but very few of them. It's not an epidemic that is threatening to swallow civilization. What is too often classed as pedophilia is the result of imposing artificial standards for maturity. To say that an 18 year-old is ready but a 17 year-old is not is - nonsense. The 18 year-old might not be ready, while the 17 year-old is quite ready and has been greedily pursuing sex since he/she was 15. Television - episode after episode about kids falling for teacher, yet, somehow, society manages to deny that adolescents are very often attracted to older people, especially authority figures. Sometimes, the attraction is mutual. If we're not talking about an 8 year-old, I don't have a particular problem w/it. Study after study - quietly published if published - has shown that most young people who had affairs w/older people felt positive about the experience, considered it one of the better things that ever happened to them. This gets ignored. After all, they're kids - and what do kids know? "It made you miserable and sick. That's that."




True enough, a lot of world leaders seem to delight in opportunistic posturing whereas there was a sense of shared dignity before.

An authority figure is always, always a surrogate parent - always. To pretend otherwise is to be either blind or - corrupt. A surrogate parent who does not behave like a parent may be amusing but is ultimately detrimental to society's well-being. No matter what was going on in their own private lives, my own parents never allowed themselves to fall apart in front of us until they were old and sick and could not help it. But we were grown and ready to take over, and, yes, it was hard - it was hard becoming the authority figure for my parents, and I was very careful to make sure that they kept their dignity. I made sure that they kept their sense of being in charge of their own lives. That was not easy.



This again is true. Ultimately all private property is held at the sufferance of the sovereign power. What the capitalists have done is seize this sovereign power and use this to create a legal and social system, through that states legitmate force, in which private property benefits their needs. Patent laws, coportate personhood and other such laws all clearly show this.


Indeed. What makes it truly disgusting is the capitalist claim that this makes for "efficiency" - that private ownership is more efficient. BULLSHIT. Private ownership is w/o doubt the most exploitive and inefficient and expensive way to go. The only aspect that has been maximized is the profit that is being derived - profit that goes into private pockets at public expense. A good example is the American healthcare system - billions upon billions are spent that would not have to be spent, all so that the middle-men (insurance companies) can profit. The claim that people w/national healthcare systems suffer and wait and do not get taken care of is - BULLSHIT. Yesterday, some slag of a so-called academic was on NPR, saying that 20 million people in Britain have died of cancer that would not have died in the United States - they died because the British system made them wait. Just said that - and the "reporter" didn't call her on it. How many millions have died in the States because they didn't get treated at all, never mind having had to wait? This, of course, is the counter to Michael Moore's movie "Sicko" - which was mentioned again and again as being full of it.



Yes - well China has, for 200 years been the dream of western, especially British and American, capitalists. Untold billions of people to hook on opium/tobacco, or whatever new contrivance the coportate world delivers - vast sums of money to be made.

If the Chinese decide to get even for what we did to them - we're fucked!


By the way, what is your view on the 'war on drugs' in the US? Is it basically the corporate world, especially those in the tobacco and alcohol industry, fearing a loss of their monopoly? I can see no other reason why many coporate suits would oppose drugs, indeed it wouldn't surprise me if many of them have made a pretty penny in the crack trade.

The War on Drugs has 3 sides.

1 - hundreds of billions spent on "controlling" what cannot and what should not be controlled - just a vast waste of money, money that goes into the pockets of swine who would be otherwise unemployed

2 - part of the shell game - keeps people distracted - keeps people worried about what should not worry them - as long as cigarettes and alcohol and fatty foods remain legal, this is clear to anyone who is a little less than plank stupid

3 - creating a power nexus. Your signature quotes Foucault. I expect that you understand what I mean. It's simple enough - by criminalizing this or that behavior, a system is set up wherein power might be appropriated and exercised.

And, yes, it was the alcohol business that put the vast pressure on to get drugs illegalized. Prior to 1913, alcohol was losing ground to marajuana. Marajuana was cheaper and gave a better bang than the booze. But the established beer business had the money to buy off the government. Prohibition should have turned that around - but the government was then "high" off the power that the "Drug War" gave them.

[omnirook]

Yes, this much is true. The problem is the ones doing the actual dirty work of selling are quite often in the employ of those who sit in leather chairs and smoke cigars all day, sweating through a series of gruelling 'meetings' (with Cognac) and golf games.


As a business owner, I can say that your picture is accurate more for the corporate world than for privately held businesses, at least for the majority of privately held businesses that are small compared to corporations. Starting Sunday afternoon, Nikolai and I were on a run that lasted until 10 o'clock last night. I got one one hour nap along the way. Otherwise, I was working "flow control" for 4 separate events. That entails overseeing the work and making sure that everybody moves when it is time to move. Nikolai does the security, always. He's not a customer person.

Sometimes, moving a celebrity from point A to point B entails evading the media, evading the public. You'd be amazed at how high-tech that is. Teams of decoys have to be scrambled - and we have to have codes in place because the papparazzi monitor radio transmissions and cellphone calls. "We're rolling. We just turned left onto 34th, headed east towards First." That could mean - we're headed north on Sixth Avenue, just passing 57th Street. One "command" van is on the streets, processing the information as it comes in. The van is equipped w/radios, video equipment (and a professional photographer (insurance purposes), GPS, 2 fax machines, cellphones (one dedicated to the police), and computers that are tracking all of it. We have the decoys out, and we have cars on the road to run interference, everything from jalopies w/North Carolina plates to yellow cabs to a faux ambulance - a squad of yellow cabs will cluster around a mob of our people, pretending to be New Yorkers looking for cabs, blocking up a whole intersection while the client's car gets away. We have people working to counter the papparazzi - following them, delaying them. Nikolai is in charge of all that, and I'm trying hard to make sure that the client remains oblivious and has a comfortable ride - as well as keeping the insurance adjustor who rides w/us from having a nervous breakdown. It's exciting - and exhausting.

Me: Well, who told him to put the steak on! We'll call when she's about to arrive! Then he can put the steak on, goddamit! What do you mean that he doesn't have another steak?! Fuck! All right. I'll get another steak.

Then I've got to call the butcher, get him out of bed, bribe him to cut up and deliver a package of those outrageously expensive Japanese steaks to the restaurant - and get a car to his home to drive him.

But, yes, Nikolai keeps the smell of cigars perfuming the air as we ride.



This is very much true. When one observes the French Revolution, it is interesting that it is spearheaded by the middle class. The peasants were largely opposed, and thus were slaughtered in one of Europe's first genocides (the Vendee).


Wat Tyler was not alone! The poor have never led a successful "revolution" - successful revolutions have always come out of the middle-class - or, in the case of Russia, the well-educated bureaucrat class. The poor are not revolution minded. They will not rise up until they are starving. 2 classes of people have a clue about the world - the rich and the poor. The middle is lost - and causes a great deal of trouble. It is for the "benefit" of the middle that the illusions of "democracy" and "rule of law" and all the other bullshit are maintained. None of that applies to the rich - and the poor know better. It's the middle that's braindead. All any "successful" revolution ever accomplished was getting rid of one set of elites and replacing them w/another - always, always w/people who were unfit for rule.

I sometimes think though that people don't want to wake up. They take a perverse pleasure in deluding themselves. Religion works on the same principle. They think they can banish misery from their lifes with delusion. And, maybe some can.




Yes - paedophillia has become a massive issue in this country when it never was before. It was almost accepted in some quaters. Now it is the cause celebre with politicians falling over themselves to enforce ever harsher laws. Children who are murdered become saccahrine icons for the media, and sell papers, which is disgusting. 100 years ago there seemed to be more resignation to the fact that these things happen sometimes, and that there is no 'crisis' except that which the media has engendered to promote their damn output.


Again - the middle class. They are the baboons who fell for the bullshit about the "innocence of children." Television and the movies were narcotics that created visions of an idealized past and the hope for an idealized future if only human nature were removed from the equation. Children are NOT "innocent" - what they lack is experience, and inexperience does NOT equal innocence! Pedophilia is mostly a mirage. Yes, there are child molestors - but very few of them. It's not an epidemic that is threatening to swallow civilization. What is too often classed as pedophilia is the result of imposing artificial standards for maturity. To say that an 18 year-old is ready but a 17 year-old is not is - nonsense. The 18 year-old might not be ready, while the 17 year-old is quite ready and has been greedily pursuing sex since he/she was 15. Television - episode after episode about kids falling for teacher, yet, somehow, society manages to deny that adolescents are very often attracted to older people, especially authority figures. Sometimes, the attraction is mutual. If we're not talking about an 8 year-old, I don't have a particular problem w/it. Study after study - quietly published if published - has shown that most young people who had affairs w/older people felt positive about the experience, considered it one of the better things that ever happened to them. This gets ignored. After all, they're kids - and what do kids know? "It made you miserable and sick. That's that."




True enough, a lot of world leaders seem to delight in opportunistic posturing whereas there was a sense of shared dignity before.

An authority figure is always, always a surrogate parent - always. To pretend otherwise is to be either blind or - corrupt. A surrogate parent who does not behave like a parent may be amusing but is ultimately detrimental to society's well-being. No matter what was going on in their own private lives, my own parents never allowed themselves to fall apart in front of us until they were old and sick and could not help it. But we were grown and ready to take over, and, yes, it was hard - it was hard becoming the authority figure for my parents, and I was very careful to make sure that they kept their dignity. I made sure that they kept their sense of being in charge of their own lives. That was not easy.



This again is true. Ultimately all private property is held at the sufferance of the sovereign power. What the capitalists have done is seize this sovereign power and use this to create a legal and social system, through that states legitmate force, in which private property benefits their needs. Patent laws, coportate personhood and other such laws all clearly show this.


Indeed. What makes it truly disgusting is the capitalist claim that this makes for "efficiency" - that private ownership is more efficient. BULLSHIT. Private ownership is w/o doubt the most exploitive and inefficient and expensive way to go. The only aspect that has been maximized is the profit that is being derived - profit that goes into private pockets at public expense. A good example is the American healthcare system - billions upon billions are spent that would not have to be spent, all so that the middle-men (insurance companies) can profit. The claim that people w/national healthcare systems suffer and wait and do not get taken care of is - BULLSHIT. Yesterday, some slag of a so-called academic was on NPR, saying that 20 million people in Britain have died of cancer that would not have died in the United States - they died because the British system made them wait. Just said that - and the "reporter" didn't call her on it. How many millions have died in the States because they didn't get treated at all, never mind having had to wait? This, of course, is the counter to Michael Moore's movie "Sicko" - which was mentioned again and again as being full of it.



Yes - well China has, for 200 years been the dream of western, especially British and American, capitalists. Untold billions of people to hook on opium/tobacco, or whatever new contrivance the coportate world delivers - vast sums of money to be made.

If the Chinese decide to get even for what we did to them - we're fucked!


By the way, what is your view on the 'war on drugs' in the US? Is it basically the corporate world, especially those in the tobacco and alcohol industry, fearing a loss of their monopoly? I can see no other reason why many coporate suits would oppose drugs, indeed it wouldn't surprise me if many of them have made a pretty penny in the crack trade.

The War on Drugs has 3 sides.

1 - hundreds of billions spent on "controlling" what cannot and what should not be controlled - just a vast waste of money, money that goes into the pockets of swine who would be otherwise unemployed

2 - part of the shell game - keeps people distracted - keeps people worried about what should not worry them - as long as cigarettes and alcohol and fatty foods remain legal, this is clear to anyone who is a little less than plank stupid

3 - creating a power nexus. Your signature quotes Foucault. I expect that you understand what I mean. It's simple enough - by criminalizing this or that behavior, a system is set up wherein power might be appropriated and exercised.

And, yes, it was the alcohol business that put the vast pressure on to get drugs illegalized. Prior to 1913, alcohol was losing ground to marajuana. Marajuana was cheaper and gave a better bang than the booze. But the established beer business had the money to buy off the government. Prohibition should have turned that around - but the government was then "high" off the power that the "Drug War" gave them.

[Oso Mocoso]

But you're probably not originally from New York then. More like a southern/ west coast transplant.

Why, Apple my dear, you believe I am a transplant from the west coast or from the American south? Interesting. You're right that I am a transplant to NY, and I have lived in both of those other regions. I'm not originally from any of those three places.

I'm not native-born, but I still believe it is possible to be both charming and from New York.

-Oso Enigmatico